LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 



. 

®W- -- - %?"# ^ 

Shelf 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 



THE 



MILLENNIUM 



AND 



RELATED EVENTS 



BV 



REV. DAVID BOSWORTH. 

WITH AN INTRODUCTION 
BY 

REV. J. M. ORROCK. 



" Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection : 
over these the second death hath no power; but they shall be priests of 
God, and of Christ, and shall reign with him ^**f*DT, Ulg U% t^ottsaojd 
years/ — Rev. 20:6, Rev. Ver. , 




FLEMING H. REVELL, 

CHICAGO: NEW YORK : 

148 and 150 Madison Street. 12 Bible House, Astor Place. 

Publisher of Evangelical Literature. 



\ 



\ 



1- 



• 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1889, by 

FLEMING H. REVELL, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 



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(-•; 



2oSf< 






CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

CHRONOLOGICAL LOCATION OF THE MILLENNIUM. 

Testimonies — Bush — Seiss — Daubuz — Barnabas — Papias- — 
Justin Martyr — Irenaeus — Tertullian — Cypi ian — Lac- 
tantius — Jerome — London Quarterly Journal of Proph- 
ecy — Andreas — Dr. Burnet — Luther — Melancthon — 
Osiander — Latimer — Joseph Mede— Joseph Farmer — 
Peter Sterry — Thomas Newton — Aug. Toplady. .13-43 

CHAPTER II. 

SCRIPTURAL LOCATION OF THE MILLENNIUM. 

Rev. xx : 1-7 — Gill's Com. on II Pet. iii:8— Lewis, Hebrew 
Aut — Isa. xxiv -.21-23 — Attempts to locate it in the past — 
Eusebius — Andreas — Bush — Such reasoning would 
destroy all truth .44-51 

CHAPTER III. 

EARTH'S FIERY BAPTISM PRECEDES THE MILLENNIUM. 

Prof Hitchcock — Moses — David — Isaiah — Daniel — Mala- 
chi— Matthew— Peter— Partial Flood — B. littles divine 
testimony 52-66 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE MILLENNIUM FOLLOWS THE RESTITUTION. 

Peter in Actsiii — Daniel — Malachi — Bliss — Low — Analogy 
— Other Scriptural proofs 67-74 

CHAPTER V. 

NATURE OF THE RESTITUTION. 

The curse, its effects — Removed, Isa. Iv:i3; chap, xxxv — 
Carmel : Am. Enc., Kitto, anonymous writer — High- 
way literal — Isa. lxvth. chap. — Births and deaths not 

iii 



iv CONTENTS. 

there — New Heavens — The promise — The only one — 
No helpless infants — No days unfilled with wisdom — 
Wolf and lamb feed together — Isaiah chapters liv and 
Ix — New Testament, Acts iii:20 — All the prophets 
testify — New Earth — Peter — Revelation 75-102 

CHAPTER VI. 

THE INHABITANTS OF THE NEW EARTH. 

The kingdom at His coming — Who cannot inherit it — Who 
are they that do? — The apostles — Forsaking the world 
for Christ — The martyrs — Like stars of the sky — The 
unnumbered throng — Little children — All the early 
dead 103-1 14 

CHAPTER VII. 

THE MILLENNIAL NATIONS. 

Israel one nation — Egypt and Assyria — Tarshish — Sheba 
and Seba — Babylon, Philistia, Tyre, Ethiopia — All the 
nations represented — Not all kings — Subjects defined. 

115-129 
CHAPTER VIII. 

GOG AND MAGOG — WHO ARE THEY ? 

Appear at the close of Millennium — Apostles: Whitby, 
Priest — Scythians, Turks, etc., Bush — Northern Asiatic 
nations, D. N. Lord — A late writer mixes them all 
through the Millennium — Not in all these — Whence 
then — Dr. Gill, " the rest of the dead " — Dr. Cumming 
— Slain everywhere — Rose where they fell — Justice 
vindicated 130-15 1 

CHAPTER IX. 

THE JUDGMENT. 

Judicial — Before first resurrection — Executive: for the 
righteous, at Christ's coming— On living nations, at the 
same time — Rest of the dead, at close of the Millen- 
nium — Apostrophe to Messiah 152-163 



PREFACE. 



The writing and compilation of the following 
pages were undertaken and completed under pecul- 
iarly trying circumstances. The writer had not 
recovered from a frightful accident which nearly 
cost him his life, when his right side was affected 
with nervous paralysis so seriously that for months 
he could not write even his name without steady- 
ing his hand with the forefinger of the left hand 
upon it. In this difficult and painful situation — 
feeling that he, and his brethren " of like pre- 
cious faith," had been " set for the defense of the 
gospel;" and especially for that phase of it which 
pertains to the Millennial reign — the subsequent 
pages were penned. Not knowing of an ortho- 
dox work extant that properly groups together 
the Millennial era, with the events immediately 
connected with its introduction and its close, he 
felt impelled by a sense of duty — though in much 
" weariness and painfulness" — to the task he has 
performed. There may be, and doubtless are inac- 



vi PREFACE. 



curacies, and perhaps infelicitous expressions; but 
intentional misquotations, or misapplications of 
Scripture or history, there absolutely are none. 

The prayerful consideration and investigation of 
the subject is invited; and criticism, not of the 
style, for I cheerfully acknowledge my imperfec- 
tions, but of the positions taken — will be gladly 
received. That they are perfectly in accord with 
the Scriptures of the New Testament, I most 
firmly believe, and if so, the Old Testament writ- 
ings, when rightly understood, will harmonize 
with the same. 

With these thoughts and reflections, I commit 
the work to Him whose name is Truth; and if 
He has prompted the preparation of the same (as 
I firmly believe He has) may His blessing attend 
it on its mission, that it may effectually accomplish 
that whereunto He sent it, is the prayer of 

The Author. 

Bristol, Vt., April n, 1889. 



INTRODUCTION. 



Having carefully read, in manuscript, the fol- 
lowing work, I am prepared to say that it is one 
which well deserves examination by the Christian 
public. The theme is certainly attractive. All 
agree that the Millennium will be a sunny height 
when gained, for during it Christ will reign, and 
the devil be bound ; but just how it is to be reached 
is one of the greatly disputed points. Is it to be a 
part of the gospel age, or does it belong to " the 
world to come" ? Which comes first — the Millen- 
nium, or the Lord in person, power and glory? 

The answer here given is, the Lord in person; 
and if that be true (and we believe it is), then the 
Second Coming of Christ is emphatically the 
hope of the Church (I Thess. 1:9, 10; Tit. ii : 1 3 ; 
I John iii:2, 3) and "till he come" we must wait, 
work, watch and witness for Him, expecting that 
while the age lasts there will be — like the tares 
and wheat growing in the same field — the co-exist- 
ence of Christianity and anti-Christianity. Read 
with candor what is here written, and see if there 

vi i 



viii INTRODUCTION, 

is not the best of reasons for coming to this con- 
clusion. 

It is not to be expected that the reader will agree 
with the author in every idea advanced, yet in the 
main, his positions may be impregnable. If it be 
thought his interpretation of Isaiah xxxvth is too 
literal, let it be observed that this chapter is the 
concluding portion of prophecy which begins with 
the preceding chapter, and which has for many 
centuries been in the course of fulfillment. The 
ancient kingdom of Idumea is in the very condi- 
tion there predicted; " thorns" have " come up in 
her palaces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses 
thereof;"' it has become "a habitation of dragons 
and a court for owls;" and the xxxvth chapter is 
but a reversal of the scene. See especially the 
contrast between chapters xxxiv:i3 and xxxv:7; 
and remember that the dividing line between the 
land under the curse and the land under the blessing, 
is the "coming of our God" in a way that he came 
not the first time, but in which he will come the 
second time. Compare chapter xxxv:4~6 with II 
The^s. i:6-io; Rev. xxii:i2 and Ileb. ix:28. If it 
be thought he has carried into the future state 
some Old Testament promises of blessing to Israel, 
which have either been fulfilled or forfeited (Jer. 



INTRODUCTION. ix 

xviii:6-io) leave them out, and you will still have 
enough left to bless and beautify the earth as it has 
never yet been adorned. 

The only Millennium of blessedness distinctly 
named in the Word of God, lies between two 
resurrections : That of the " blessed and holy," and 
that of " the rest of the dead" — the unblest and 
unholy (Rev. xx:4-6), and that they are both lit- 
eral, we believe is here successfully maintained. 
That this Millennium will be the seventh from cre- 
ation, is the author's sanguine expectation; and 
certainly few opinions, without a direct, positive 
statement of Scripture to sustain them, have gained 
such wide currency in the Christian church as this 
one has done. The early Christians could only 
hold this opinion and yet look for the Lord in their 
day by following the Septuagint chronology, and 
by hoping that the w T aiting days even might be 
" shortened." 

Though from the Hebrew chronology the exact 
age of the world at the present time cannot be 
demonstrated, yet according to the best reckoning 
which can be made of it, the world's w T eary week 
of labor must be very near its ending, and the sev- 
enth millenary begin soon. Should it prove to be 
" the Millennium" and be preceded by " the resur- 



I NT ROD UC TIOAt. 



rection of the just" (Luke xiv:i4), are we now in 
the enjoyment of the rest of grace (Matt. xi:28- 
30) which must precede that rest of glory? 

I have never been able to escape the conclusion 
here reached that the work of redemption in the 
conversion of souls ends with the present age. 
Then the Master of the house rises up and shuts to 
the door (Luke xiii:24-29). Till then, the great 
commission to preach the gospel to all nations, 
holds good, and no longer (Matt, xxviii : 18-20). Till 
then we are to "account the long: suffering: of the 
Lord" with the world, Salvation, and the delay 
to fulfill "the promise of His coming" to be be- 
cause of His " not wishing that any should perish, 
but that all should come to repentance," — a reason 
that is without force if after His coming the Jews 
as a nation, are to be converted, and more Gentiles 
"come to repentance" than do now (II Pet. iii: 
Rev. Ver.). The drag-net sweeps through the 
sea of the world now, but we do not read of its 
being cast in a second time (Matt, xiii 147-50). c 'Be- 
hold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the 
day of salvation*'* (II Cor. vi:2); beyond is "the 
day of redemption" for all who are " in Christ," 
dead or alive (Eph. iv:3o; I Cor. xv:22, 23; I 



INTRODUCTION. xi 

Thess. iv:i6, 17), and " the day of judgment for 
the world," 

This work is not a novel, nor will it sell like 
one; yet it contains many things which will seem 
novel to not a few Christians. The spirit it 
breathes is one of candor and love; and the reader 
is invited to take nothing upon trust but all upon 
trial by the Word of God. It exalts Christ, and 
appeals to the Scriptures; 1 can therefore commend 
it. Yes, the Millennium comes, but the Lord of 
the Millennium comes first; and the great prac- 
tical question should be, Are we ready to meet 
him? 

J. M. Orrock. 

Bi'ookline, Mass. 



THE MILLENNIUM 



The Word of God is largely made up of sacred 
predictions — or history written beforehand — from 
Genesis to Revelation. Some of these, the most 
sublime, far-reaching and most glorious, or the 
most fearful, as affecting the destiny of the race 
of mankind, remain yet to be fulfilled; and are 
(if f rightly understand the subject) immediately 
connected with the theme under consideration. 
Prominent among these is the coming of the Son 
of Man, the Resurrection, the Judgment, the 
Restitution, and the investiture of the saints with 
Christ of the kingdom, and dominion under the 
whole heaven. These subjects will be discussed 
only so far as they relate to, or are intimately 
connected with, the Millennium. 



XM 



THE MILLENNIUM 



CHAPTER I. 

TESTIMONIES TO ITS CHRONOLOGICAL 
LOCATION. 

Prof. George Bush, in his Treatise on the 
Millennium^ says : " The etymological import 
of the word millennium denotes, as is well 
known, the space of a thousand years. The 
term, considered by itself, does not point to 
any particular period of that extent, but may 
be applied indifferently to any one of the five 
millenniums which have elapsed since the 
creation, to the sixth now verging toward its 
close, or to the seventh, which is yet to come. 
But long-established usage has given the 
word a restricted application, and where it 
occurs without specification it is universally 
understood to refer to the period mentioned 
by the prophet of Patmos, Rev. xx: 1-7." 
{pp. 21, 22). " Usage," says Dr. Joseph A. 

xiii 



14 THE MILLENNIUM. 

Seiss, "has somewhat restricted the meaning 
of the word to a particular thousand years, or 
to a long period of time which is described in 
the Scriptures as a mille anni, or millennium. " 
The passage which both these writers 
agree, has given rise to the name, and which 
most directly and fully sets forth the millen- 
nium, reads thus : 

" I saw an angel come down from heaven, 
having the key of the bottomless pit and a 
great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on 
the Dragon, that old serpent, which is the 
Devil and Satan, and bound him a thousand 
years, and cast him into the bottomless pit, 
and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, 
that he should deceive the nations no more 
till the thousand years should be fulfilled ; and 
after that he must be loosed a little season. 
And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, 
and judgment was given unto them ; and I 
saw the souls of them that were beheaded for 
the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, 
and which had not worshiped the beast, 
neither his image, neither had received his 
mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands ; 
and they lived and reigned with Christ a 
thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived 
not again until the thousand years were fin- 
ished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed 
and holy is he that hath part in the first res- 
urrection ; on such the second death hath no 
power, but they shall be priests of God and 



CHRONOLOGICAL LOCATION. 15 

of Christ, and shall reign with him a thou- 
sand years. And when the thousand years are 
expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his 
prison." 

" Here, then," says Dr. Seiss, " is a very 
specific and important mille anni — a most sig- 
nificant x' L ' ALa ^ — a Millennium or Chiliad 
which separates itself from all other Millen- 
niums, and is marked with the most exalted 
features of which the Christian Scriptures 
treat." 

While the above extracts sufficiently define 
the word, I add in connection with the last 
clause, that wherever the Bible is read, almost 
all who read it enough to form any opinion 
at all, on hearing the Millennium mentioned, 
instinctively connect it with the seventh thou- 
sand years of earth's history. We admit that 
it is no positive proof of the chronological 
location of the Millennium, but it is strong 
presumptive proof that there is something in 
the Scripture statements concerning it, and 
especially in the passage mainly relied on, to 
impress the mind with such a thought. From 
the very commencement of the Christian era 
— and even among Rabbinical writers cen- 
turies before — the belief prevailed that the six 
creation days were emblematic of six thou- 
sand years of probation, and then would come 



16 THE MILLENNIUM. 

Messiah's day, or a thousand years of Sabbath 
rest. Indeed, so common was this hope that 
for the first two and a half centuries we might 
select almost any name among Christian 
writers, and we should find them expressing 
the thought with a confidence which shows it 
was with them not a mere speculative opinion, 
but an article of assured faith. 

We shall not quote from writers prior to 
A. D., as it is not particularly apposite to our 
purpose. Suffice it to say, the sex-millennial 
duration of evil, and then the triumph of the 
good, may not only be found among the Jew- 
ish writings, but also in Sybilline oracles, 
writings of the Persian Ma^i, those of Pin- 
tarch, and several of the Grecian writers. 
Daubuz, said by Prof, Bush to be u by far 
the ablest of all commentators on the visions 
of John," speaks thus of this Ante-Millennian 
faith among the Jews: 

'• It may be observed, that as the Jewish 
church had no absolute rest or Sabbatism as 
the Millennium is, so the Holy Ghost could 
not derive the symbol from that economy, 
but was as it were, obliged to draw it. from a 
higher fountain, or original of ideal types and 
events. But, however, even this original idea 
was known to the Jews, They had a tradi- 
tion of it, and the notion was current even 



CHRONOLOGICAL LOCATION. 17 

before St. John wrote. He has not then 
treated of the Millennium as a new tiling, but 
has described it in some measure by the old 
notions with improvements ; and besides that, 
showed us how it is accomplished by Christ, 
by giving us a full account of the antecedents 
and consequents. Now that tradition was 
grounded upon the allegorical exposition of 
the creation of the world in six days, and the 
rest of God in the seventh ; and that a thou- 
sand years are with God as one day. Whence 
it is argued, that as God created the world 
in six days, and rested on the seventh, so he 
will redeem mankind and work out their re- 
demption in six thousand years, and procure 
his and their sabbatism in the seventh thou- 
sand ; this rest being to be proportional to 
the duration of the work. By consequence, 
that term of one thousand years is to be taken 
in a literal sense, and must consist just of a 
thousand years in the common acceptation of 
the word, and needs no further evolution, as 
some of late have pretended, because it is 
fixed by that traditional allegory. Now that 
the Jews had it, must be plain, from this, that 
we find it in St. Barnabas, who wrote before 
St. John many years. And indeed we give 
very good reasons in our Commentary to 
think that the notion is as old as the Delude, 



18 THE MILLENNIUM, 

because we find it to be pretty plainly also 
the tradition of the Chaldean Magi, and per- 
haps too of the Egyptians."* Daubuz, Perpet. 
Comment, on the Rev. p. 64, 1720. 

We will now look at this opinion as it lay 
in the mind of those who have written on the 
same since the beginning of the present dis- 
pensation. The epistle of Barnabas, whether 
written by the "good man, full of the Holy 
Ghost and of faith" (Acts xi:22, 24), or not, 
is certainly traceable to very nearly the times 
of the apostles, or as Daubuz says, " many 
years before St. John wrote." He testifies 
thus : 

" ' And God made in six days the work of 
his hands, and he finished them on the 
seventh day, and he rested in it and he sanc- 
tified it/ Consider, my children, what that 
signifies ; lie finished them in six days. This it 
signifies, that the Lord God will finish all 
things in six thousand years. For a day with 
him is a thousand years; as he himself testi- 
fieth, saying, * Behold this day shall be as a 
thousand years.' Therefore, children, in six 
days, that is, in six thousand years, shall all 
things be consummated. ''And he rested the 

* Those who are curious to see these early opinions on the 
subject will find a very good resume of the same in D. T. 
Taylor's Voice of the Chuixh on the Reign of Christ, pp. 25-36. 



CHRONOLOGICAL LOCATION. 19 

seventh day ; this signifies that when his Son 
shall come, and shall abolish the season of the 
wicked one, and shall change the sun and the 
moon and the stars, then he shall rest glo- 
riously in that seventh day." 

PAPIAS, A. D. 1 1 6. 

We learn from Eusebius, that Papias, in 
the preface to his books, says, he " did not 
follow various opinions, but had the apostles 
for his authors ; and that he considered 
what Andrew, what Peter, what Philip, what 
Thomas and other disciples of the Lord said ;" 
and among them he names the apostle John. 
Of the Millennium he says: " There will be 
a certain thousand years after the resurrection 
of the dead, when the kingdom of Christ will 
be established visibly on this earth." Ire- 
naeus intimates that he claimed the sanction 
of John for it. The learned Greswell re- 
marks: " Papias' honesty has never been 
impeached ; and his antiquity makes his testi- 
mony to the Millennium so much the more 
valuable." 

JUSTIN MARTYR, A. D. 150. 

" I and whatsoever Christians are orthodox 
in all things, do know that there will be a 
resurrection of the flesh, and a thousand years 



20 THE MILLENNIUM. 

in Jerusalem, which will then be built, adorned 
and enlarged, as the prophets Ezekiel and 
Isaiah and others declare. For thus hath 
Isaiah spoken concerning this thousand years : 
' For there shall be the new heaven and the 
new earth/ etc. [He quotes Isa. IXVH7-25 in 
full, making the ' tree ' of verse 22 ' the tree 
of life;' applies the expression, 'The day of 
the Lord is a thousand years ' (Ps. xc:4, and 
II Peter iii:8), to this time, and adds]: " More- 
over a certain man among us, whose name was 
John, being one of the apostles of Christ, in 
that Revelation which was shown to him, 
prophesied that those who believe in our 
Christ, should live a thousand years in Jeru- 
salem ; and after that there would be a gen- 
eral, and in a word, a universal resurrection 
of every individual person, when all should 
arise together to an everlasting state and a 
future judgment." 

IREN^US, A. D, 183. 

" In as many days as this world was made, 
in so many thousand years shall it be con- 
cluded. And for this reason the Scripture 
says, \ Thus the heaven and the earth were 
finished, and all their adornment. And God 
brought to a conclusion upon the sixth day 
the works that he hath made ; and God rested 



CHRONOLOGICAL LOCATION. 21 

upon the seventh day from all his works.' * * 
And then [after the reign of Antichrist] the 
Lord shall come from heaven in the clouds, 
in the glory of the Father, sending this man 
and those who follow him into the lake of 
fire, but bringing in for the righteous the 
times of the kingdom, that is, the rest, the 
hallowed seventh day ; and restoring to Abra- 
ham the promised inheritance in which king- 
dom the Lord declared that ' many coming 
from the east and from the west should sit 
down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. ,,, 
Irenoeus against Heresies, Book V., Chapters 
xxviii, xxx. As Taylor well remarks, " He thus 
identifies the Millennium with the kingdom 
of God, placing both at the end of the sixth 
Chiliad." 

TERTULLIAN, A. D. 200. 

" We confess that a kingdom is promised 
to us upon the earth, before that in heaven, 
only in another state of existence; inasmuch 
as it will be after the resurrection, for a thou- 
sand years in the divinely built city of Jeru- 
salem, ' let down from heaven/ which the 
apostle calls ' our mother from above.' * * 
This both Ezekiel knew, and the apostle John 
saw. * * * We say that this city has 
been provided by God for receiving the saints 



22 THE MILLENNIUM. 

on their resurrection, and refreshing- them 
with the abundance of all spiritual good 
things, in recompense for those which in the 
world we have either despised or lost; since 
it is both just and God-worthy that his ser- 
vants should there triumph and rejoice, where 
they have been afflicted for his name's sake." 
Tertullian against Marcion, Book III, Chap. 24. 

CYPRIAN, A. D. 220. 

" It were a self-contradictory and incom- 
patible thing- for us, who pray that the king- 
dom of God may quickly come, to be looking 
for long life here below. * * * Let us 
ever in anxiety and cautiousness be awaiting 
the sudden advent of the Lord, for as those 
things which were foretold are come to pass, 
so those things will follow which are yet 
promised, the Lord giving assurance and say- 
ing, ' When you see all these things come to 
pass, know that the kingdom of God is nigh at 
hand.' Dearest brethren, the kingdom of God 
has begun to be nigh at hand ; reward of life, 
joy, eternal salvation, perpetual happiness, 
and possession of Paradise, lately lost, .are 
already coming nigh while the world passes 
away." 

" Dr. Burnet sa}^s that with the other 
Fathers he fixed the period of six thousand 



CHRONOLOGICAL LOCATION. 



years, and made the seventh Millennium — 
' the consummation of all/ Taylor s Voice of 
the Church, p. 73. 

LACTANTIUS, A. D. 3OO. 

" Let the philosophers, who number thou- 
sands of ages since the beginning of the world, 
know that the six thousandth year is not yet 
concluded or ended. But that number being 
fulfilled, of necessity there must be an end, 
and the state of human things be transformed 
into that which is better. * * * Because 
all the works of God were finished in six 
days, it is necessary that the world should 
remain in this state six ages, that is, six thou- 
sand years. * * * And again, since God, 
having finished his works, rested on the 
seventh day and blessed it, at the end of the 
six thousandth year all wickedness must be 
abolished from the earth, and righteousness 
reign^for a thousand years. * * * When he 
(the Son of God) shall have destroyed in- 
justice, and executed his great judgment, and 
shall have restored the just to life, he shall be 
conversant among men a thousand years, and 
shall rule them with a most righteous gov- 
ernment. * * * At the same time the 
Prince of devils shall be bound with chains, 
and shall be in custody for a thousand years 



24 THE MILLENNIUM. 

of the heavenly kingdom, lest he should at- 
tempt anything evil against the people of 
God. * * * When the thousand years of 
the kingdom, that is, seven thousand (of the 
world) shall draw toward a close, Satan shall 
be loosed again. * * * At the same time 
shall be that second and public resurrection 
of all, in which the unrighteous shall be 
raised to everlasting punishment. * * * 
This is the doctrine of the holy prophets 
which we Christians follow." Condensed 
from the Divine Institutes, Book VII. 

Lactantius is no mean witness. He brings 
us to the commencement of the fourth cen- 
tury. He was tutor to the heir of Constan- 
tine, and his eloquence and erudition gained 
for him the title of " The Christian Cicero." 
But neither the wisdom of the schools, nor 
the blandishments of courts, could seduce 
him from that faith that made him — like Jo- 
seph of Arimathea — anxiously wait for the 
kingdom of God, nor could they silence his 
burning testimony for the same. 

At this point the testimony began to waver ; 
the church was rising to the seat of power. 
Constantine having embraced the Christian 
faith, it was no longer unpopular to confess 
the once hated name. Her assemblies were 
thronged, her bishops became princes, " and, 



CHRONOLOGICAL LOCATION. 25 

instead of longer looking for the coming 
kingdom, multitudes actually supposed that 
the long-predicted kingdom of God was then 
being established, by the increased splendor, 
popularity and outward peace of the Church." 
The state of things was such that Eusebius 
says, it looked like " the very image of the 
kingdom of Christ ;" and he goes on to argue 
that then were fulfilled the predictions that 
had before been applied to the restored earth. 
But although the truth began to be obscured, 
we find a strong company adhering to the 
same at the close of the fourth and beginning 
of the fifth century, by the admission of 

JEROME, A. D. 390-420. 

He admits the sex-millennial duration of 
the world, but scoffs at the doctrine of the 
Millennium. But while striving to bring it 
into disrepute he makes some important ad- 
missions. On Jer. xix:io, he says, that "he 
durst not condemn the (millennial) doctrine, 
because many ecclesiastical persons and mar- 
tyrs affirm the same. And again, speaking of 
the Millenarian Apollinarius, he remarks : 
" An author whom not only the men of his 
own sect, but most of our own people likewise, 
follow on this point (Chiliasm) so that it is not 
difficult to prove what a multitude of persons 



26 THE MILLENNIUM. 

will be offended with me." This admission, 
that to his day a great multitude of the Church, 
if not a majority, held the doctrine of the Mil- 
lennium, and to come in the seventh thousand 
years, is worthy of note. 

Concerning the state of things at this time, 
the London Quarterly Journal of Prophecy, 
Vol. IV, p. 332, says : " We find that, to carry 
out the worship of 'the Mother of the Gods,' 
it became necessary to expel the orthodox 
from the Church. Hence, we find Jerome, 
Damasus.. Basil, and all their friar associates, 
now teaching a merely spiritual heaven of 
eternal idleness, precisely similar to that of 
the mysteries of Eleusis, instead of a regen- 
erated universe where men should labor for 
the glory of their Lord, The orthodox op- 
posed. They declared their hope that the 
Lord would return and reign* Damasus de- 
cided that the reign of the saints had begun 
already. He now formally declared the Mil- 
lenarians heretical. He expelled them from 
the Church. His courts everywhere decided 
against them. None were left, save those 
that worshiped the Virgin Queen, and desired 
not that Christ would return in the flesh. 
Buddhism and the Babylonian worship took 
the place of Christianity, and the old Chal- 
dean creed became the established religion of 



CHRONOLOGICAL LOCATION. 27 

the people, as it had for six centuries been 
the secret faith of the aristocracy of Rome/' 
Thus it will be seen the witnesses for Mil- 
lennial truth were hushed in their testimony, 
or banished into the wilderness to testify in- 
sackcloth, for 1260 years. But all the perse- 
cutions of a proud and tyrannical hierarchy, 
or the mockings of a popular and worldly 
church, could not prevent the truth from 
flashing out at times, like the blazing up of 
fires again from the deadening embers of a 
great conflagration, when fanned by a strong 
wind. Thus 

ANDREAS, A. D. 550-600. 

Although himself advocating an entirely dif- 
ferent system of interpretation, he is con- 
strained to admit : " Some think that after the 
completion of six thousand years shall be the 
first resurrection from the dead, which is to 
be peculiar to the saints alone ; who are to be 
raised up that they may dwell again on this 
earth, where they had given proofs of patience 
and fortitude ; and that they may live here a 
thousand years in honor and plenty, after 
which will be the general resurrection." 

Thus the truth lived on among those " of 
whom the world was not worthy ; who wan- 
dered in deserts, and in mountains, and in 



28 THE MILLENNIUM. 

dens and caves of the earth " (Heb. XK38). As 
truth was thus banished from the public ho- 
rizon, and only saved by those ancient wor- 
thies in dens and caves of the earth so the 
dark AGES were made darker still by this star 
of hope being banished from the horizon of 
the professed Christian world, and only shin- 
ing with fitful gleams through rifts in the 
clouds of ignorance and error. 

Dr. Thomas Burnet, a writer of eminence, 
who died in England in 171 5, says: " I never 
met with a Popish doctor that held the Mil- 
lennium ; Baronius would have it pass for a 
heresy, with Papias for its author; whereas, 
if Irenseus may be credited, it was received 
from St. John, and by him from the mouth of 
our Saviour. It never pleased, but always 
gave offence to the church of Rome ; because 
it did not suit that scheme of Christianity 
which they have drawn. The Apocalypse of 
John supposed the true Church under hard- 
ships and persecutions, but the church of 
Rome supposing Christ reigns already, by his 
vicar, the Pope, hath been in prosperity and 
greatness, and the commanding church in 
Christendom now for a long time. And the 
Millennium being properly a reward and a 
triumph for those that come out of persecu- 
tion (z. e. the martyrs), such as have lived 



CHRONOLOGICAL LOCATION. 29 

always in pomp and prosperity, can pretend 
to no share in it, or be benefited by it. This 
has made the church of Rome always have 
an ill eye upon this doctrine, because it 
seemed to have an ill eye upon her ; and as 
she grew in splendor and greatness, she 
eclipsed mid obscured it more and more ; so that 
it would have been lost out of the world, as 
an obsolete error, if it had not been revived 
by some at the Reformation." Theory of the 
Earth, Vol II, p. 193. 

The Rev. John Cox of England, remarks 
that, " The great chasm in the history of 
Chiliasm, seems to be those awful centuries of 
Rome's supremacy, when almost every truth 
was hidden." But one thing will be noticed 
by those who examine the subject, the sex- 
Millennial duration of the world, and resur- 
rection, and judgment following, continued 
to be taught all along the centuries from 
Andreas to Joachim Abbas, A. D. 1190, and 
perhaps till the epoch of the Reformation. 
Testimonies from that period become more 
abundant. 

LUTHER, A. D. 1530. 

Albert Bengel says of him : " He believed 
with many others, that the duration of the 
world, from its commencement, would be 



30 THE MILLENNIUM. 

only 6,000 years, and hence considered its end 
so near, that he could see no space for any 
future Millennium." And this is corrobo- 
rated by a passage from his Table Talk : 

" The Gospel is preached throughout the 
world ; the child of perdition is revealed and 
destroyed in the hearts of many ; the kingdom 
of Rome is declining to its fall ; all the ele- 
ments and creatures are in commotion, and 
declining; there is no longer any love or 
fidelity on earth, and Christ may come when 
he may, he will find but a small flock of be- 
lievers; excess in eating and drinking, the 
practice of usury, anxious cares, covetous- 
ness, extravagance in dress and building, and 
all manner of irregularity verily being as 
prevalent now as they were at the times of 
Noah ; wherefore I conceive that the signs 
preceding the last day are fulfilled. Unless it 
should be that Gog and Magog, together with 
the Papacy, should yet be crushed and de- 
stroyed previously, in a temporal respect too, 
and that particular and supernatural darkness 
should perhaps, be witnessed in the sun and 
moon, as was the case at the death of Christ, 
and that the gospel should, previously to the 
last day, be banished from all the churches, 
schools and pulpits, and be found only with 
pious heads of families, within their four 



CHRONOLOGICAL LOCATION. . 31 

walls, as it was in the times of Elijah, and as 
it almost seems it will be now. Otherwise, 
everything is fulfilled which is to precede the 
last day. Methinks Christ our Lord is already 
publishing his summons in heaven, and the 
angels are preparing for their journey, and 
because during these six thousand years all 
the great and marvelous events of which 
Elijah prophesied have occurred in spring 
and at about Easter, I trust Christ will also 
appear about Easter, and cause his voice and 
thunder to be heard in a morning tempest, 
and then with one stroke, confounding the 
heavens and the earth, in a moment of time 
transform the living, raise the dead, create a 
new heaven and earth, hold his judgment in 
the clouds, wholly fulfil the Scriptures, to- 
gether with his last It is finished ! This we 
await." Meurers Life of Luther, pp. 573-4. 

MELANCTHON. 

He was cotemporary with Luther, and we 
are told that "in the British Museum is a 
copy of the first edition of Luther's German 
Bible, in two volumes ;" upon the third page 
of the fly-leaf of the second volume of which 
are the following words, in the writing of Me- 
lancthon : 



32 THE MILLENNIUM. 

" THE WORDS OF THE PROPHET ELIAS : 

u Six thousand years this world shall stand, 
and after that be burned. 

" Two thousand void (or without the law.) 

" Two thousand years, the law of Moses. 

" Two thousand years, the day of the Mes- 
siah, but on account of our sins, which are 
many and great, these years that are not ful- 
filled shall be shortened. 

" Written in the year 1557, after the birth 
of our Lord Jesus Christ of the Virgin Mary. 
Year from the creation of the world, 5519. 
From this number we may be assured that 
this aged world is not far from its end. May 
Jesus Christ, the Son of Almighty God, gra- 
ciously preserve, govern, keep, protect it by 
the power of his arm. 

"Written by the hand of Philip, 1557. W." 

OSIANDER, A. D. 1530 — 1550. 

He was born in Bavaria, and was one of 
Luther's first disciples. The Rev. E. B. El- 
liott says of him that he " rather curiously 
notices Phocas' decree, A. D. 606, as consti- 
tuting a notable Papal commencing epoch;" 
and " also argues like Melancthon, from the 
tradition of Elias ; observing that as not all 
the sixth day was employed in creation, but 
its evening partly taken into the Sabbath, so it 
might be expected that all the sixth millen- 
nium would not pass before the sabbatism ; 



CHROXOLOG1CAL LOCATION. 33 

but the Sabbath begin ere it all had run out." 

Horce ApocalypticcE, Vol. II, p. 138. 

LATIMER, A. D. 1530 — 1550. 

Elliott says of him : " In his third sermon 
on the Lord's Prayer, he thus expresses him- 
self: ■ Most merciful Father, let thy kingdom 
come ! St. Paul saith, tlie Lord will not come 
till the swerving from the faith cometh, II 
Thess. ii:3 ; zvhich thing is already done and 
past. Anti-Christ is known throughout all the 
world. Wherefore the day is not far off. * * 
The world was ordained to endure, as all 
learned men affirm * * six thousand years. 
Now, of that number, there be past 5552 years, 
so that there is no more left but 448 years. 
Furthermore, those days shall be shortened 
for the elect's sake. Therefore all those ex- 
cellent and learned men, whom, without doubt 
God hath sent into the world in these latter 
days to give the world warning [mark here 
Latimer's testimony to the universality of the 
impression] do gather out of Scripture that 
the last day cannot be far off.' Yet again, in 
a sermon on the second Sunday in Advent, 
after noticing the expected shortening of the 
days, he thus strongly expresses himself on 
the nearness of the Second Advent: i So that 
peradventure, it may come in my days, old 

3 



34 THE MILLENNIUM. 

as I am, or in my children's days.' ; Horce 
Apoc. Vol II, p. 140. 

These testimonies show how the Millennial 
truth lay latent in the mind of the Reformers 
— the 6,000 years covering the time of pro- 
bation, — but so darkened by the falsehoods of 
Rome, or obscured by the visionary theories 
of the Middle Ages, that the Sabbatism that 
sometimes seems to flash out from the vista 
beyond (as in the case of Osiander) appeared 
to them like a dream— a vision of the night. 
But as things which appear distorted and 
misshapen in the dim rays of early morning, 
assume their natural appearance as the light 
rises to the zenith, so the Millennium shone 
out in all its relations and surroundings in the 
testimony of divines of the next century. 

JOSEPH MEDE, A. D. l620. 

Speaking of Rev. xx:4,etc.,he says: "When 
at first I perceived that Millennium to be a 
state of the Church consequent to the times of 
the beast, I was averse from the proper accep- 
tation of that resurrection, taking it for a rising 
of the Church from a dead estate ; yet after- 
ward, more seriously considering and weigh- 
ing all things, I found no ground or footing 
for any sense but the literal. (His biographer 
says: * He tried all ways imaginable to place 



CHRONOLOGICAL LOCATION. 35 

the Millennium elsewhere' — than after the 
literal first resurrection — ' and, if it were pos- 
sible, to begin the thousand years at the reign 
of Constantine. * * But after all his striving, 
he was forced to yield to the light and evi- 
dence/) For first, I cannot be persuaded to 
forsake the proper and usual importment of 
Scripture language, where neither the insin- 
uation of the text itself, nor manifest tokens 
of allegory, nor the necessity and nature of 
things spoken of (which will bear no other 
sense) do warrant it. For to do so, were to 
lose all footing of divine testimony, and in- 
stead of Scripture to believe mine own imag- 
inations. * '•-*■ * How can a man then in so 
plain and simple a narration, take a passage 
of so plain and ordinarily expressed w T ords 
(as those about the first resurrection are) in 
any other sense than the usual and literal? 

"Secondly, Howsoever the tvord resurrec- 
tion by itself might seem ambiguous, yet in a 
sentence, composed in this manner — viz., ' of 
the dead,' ' those which were beheaded for 
the witness of Jesus/ etc., lived again when 
the thousand years began, but i the rest of the 
dead lived not again till the thousand years 
were ended' — it would be a most harsh and 
violent interpretation to say that ' dead,' and 
consequently 'living again from the dead,' 



36 THE MILLENNIUM. 

should not in both cases be taken in the same 
meaning. For if such a speech, in ordinary 
construction, implies, that some of the dead 
lived again in the beginning of the thousand 
years, in that sense 'the rest' should live again 
at the end of the thousand years, and e contra, 
in what manner 'the rest of the dead' should 
live again at the end of the thousand years, 
in that manner those who were beheaded for 
Jesus lived again in the beginning of the thou- 
sand years; which living again of those some, 
is called ' the first resurrection.' Medes 
Complete Works, Vol. IV, pp. 770,71. 

The foregoing testimony, though an argu- 
ment clearl} 7 setting forth the two resurrec- 
tions, is equally explicit as to the Millennium, 
making it subsequent to the time of the beast, 
bounded by the two resurrections; thus pin- 
ning it down to the seventh thousand years. 
Our next is more pointed still ; setting forth 
the ancient faith in all its pristine beauty. 

JOSEPH FARMER, A. D. 1660. 

He says : " I argue as followeth: — The 
kingdom of the Son of Man and of the saints 
of the Most High, in Daniel, begins when the 
great Judgment sits. The kingdom, in the 
Apocalypse,. chap. xx:4; wherein the saints 
reign with Christ a thousand years, is the 



CHRONOLOGICAL LOCATION. 37 

same with the kingdom of the Son of Man 
and the saints of the Most High in the prophet 
Daniel. Therefore it also begins at the great 
judgment. * * * Now if it be sufficiently 
proved that the one thousand years begin 
with the day of judgment, it will appear 
further out of the Apocalypse, that the judg- 
ment is not consummated till they be ended ; 
for Gog and Magog's destruction and the uni- 
versal resurrection is not till then ; therefore, 
the whole one thousand years is included in 
that great day of judgment. * * * The res- 
urrection of the just in the morning of the 
day of judgment, or beginning of the thou- 
sand years, is called ' the first resurrection.' 
Without doubt the Greek article, 
twice repeated, l this that resurrection, that 
first,' hath a singular emphasis, to demon- 
strate some first resurrection, known and 
spoken of in the writings of the prophets and 
apostles. * * It will be millennium 

aureumox aiireitm secnlum. It will be a golden 
day and age indeed, for the holy city, the 
New Jerusalem ; that city of gold and pearl, 
mentioned in Rev. xxi, doth contemporate and 
synchronize with the thousand years." Sober 
Inquiry. 

As these testimonies increase in their bright- 
ness as the years go by, it will be proper to 



38 THE MILLENNIUM. 

bring a witness from the Westminster As- 
sembly, as to the appearance and reception of 
the doctrine at that time. 

PETER STERRY, A. D. 1653. 

" The subject (which is the reign of our 
Saviour with his saints on the earth) is of a 
transcendent glory in itself, of a universal 
consequence to all persons and states, and of 
very great reasonableness for present times. 
Like a piece of rich coin, it hath been long 
buried in the earth ; but of late days, digged 
up again, it begins to grow bright with hand- 
ling, and to pass current with great numbers 
of saints, and learned men of great authority. 
As the same star at different seasons is the 
evening star, setting immediately after the sun, 
and then the morning star, shining immedi- 
ately before it; so was this truth the evening 
star to the first coming of Christ, setting to- 
gether with the glory of that day in a night of 
anti-christianism ; and now it appears again in 
our own times, as a morning star to that blessed 
day of the second effusion of the Spirit, and 
the second appearance of our Saviour in the 
glory of the Father. ,, London Q. J. of Proph., 
Vol. IV. p. 316. 

THOMAS NEWTON, A. D. 1770. 
He says: "That the kingdom of heaven 



CHRONOLOGICAL LOCATION. 39 

shall be established upon earth, is the plain 
and express doctrine of Daniel and all the 
prophets, as well as of St. John; and we 
daily pray for the accomplishment of it in 
praying, ' Thy kingdom come.' But of all 
prophets, St. John is the only one who hath 
declared particularly, and in express terms, 
that the martyrs shall rise to partake of the 
felicities of this kingdom, and that it shall 
continue upon earth a thousand years ; and 
the Jewish church before him, and the Chris- 
tian church after him, have further believed 
and taught that these thousand years zvill be the 
seventh milk unary of the world" Dissertations 
on Proph.,p. 587. 

AUGUSTUS TOPLADY, A. D. 1775. 

He testifies thus : " I am one of those old- 
fashioned people, who believe the doctrine of 
the Millennium, and that there will be two 
distinct resurrections of the dead ; first, of 
the just, and second, of the unjust; which 
last resurrection of the reprobate will not 
commence till a thousand years after the res- 
urrection of the elect. In this glorious inter- 
val of a thousand years, Christ, 1 apprehend, 
will reign in person over the kingdom of the 
just." Complete Works, p. 447. 

" The earth will become just what it was 



46 THE MILLENNIUM. 

(perhaps considerably better than it was) ere 
sin destroyed the harmony and broke the bal- 
ance of the well-according system. The 
stupendous accomplishment of this predes- 
tined restoration is largely and explicitly 
foretold, Rev. xx, where we read that the 
apostate angels shall be restrained by the 
coercive power of God. * * .* The next 
chapter opens with acquainting us, that prior 
to the actual commencement of the Millen- 
nium, a new heaven, that is, a new bod} 7 of 
surrounding air, and a new earth, shall be 
prepared for the residence of Christ and his 
elect : ' I saw a new heaven and a new earth ; 
for the first heaven and the first earth were 
passed away; and there was no more sea;' 
intimating this terraqueous globe and its cir- 
cumambient atmosphere will be so purified 
by the preceding general conflagration, as to 
be totally changed in their qualities, and en- 
tirely divested of everything noxious, or that 
can cause disgust and pain. ,, Ibid, p. 428. 

These testimonies- bring us down near the 
close of the eighteenth century, and fully 
justify the thought expressed in my opening 
statement, that the witnesses for God all 
along the ages, have largely accepted the 
Millennium as used in its restricted sense; 
chronologically pointing to the seventh tJiou- 



Chronological location. \\ 

sand years of earth's history. The witnesses 
might be greatly multiplied; but these are 
certainly sufficient to show any unprejudiced 
mind that the testimony of the Church for 
two and a half centuries was clear and unmis- 
takable, — six thousand years of probation, 
then a Millennial Sabbatismos. For the two 
following centuries the witness was distinct, 
but there w r ere discordant voices In the 
commencement of the fourth century the 
Church became enamored of worldly glory, 
by the conversion of Constantine, and her 
consequent accession to imperial favor. 
Those who were humble enough to sing, 

" This is not my place of resting," 

soon found then selves under the ban of the 
dignitaries of the Church ; their testimony 
became unpopular, for the multitude of those 
professing to be believers chose to bask in the 
smiles of royalty, and " enjoy the pleasures 
of sin for a season/' rather than " surfer afflic- 
tion with the people of God." Thus was the 
true doctrine of the Millennium obscured ; 
for even Eusebius, the church historian of the 
early part of the fourth century, was so cap- 
tivated with the exaltation of the Church 
under Constantine, that he applies some of the 
clearest Millennial Scriptures to that event 



42 THE MILLENNIUM. 



(Isa. xxxv, xlix:i3-23, and liv:i 1-14, and va- 
rious others); bringing down these grand old 
prophecies of the glories of Messianic times, 
and applying them to the mere triumphs of 
jarring sectaries in a world lying under the 
curse. Thus was the truth darkened, and the 
true witnesses, clothed in sackcloth, were 
driven into the wilderness for the next 1200 
years — preparing the way for Antichrist to 
seat himself in the temple of God. And dur- 
ing this long period Millennarianism — so far 
as Rome was concerned — became a thing of 
the past. Dr. Burnet well remarks: "She 
always had an ill eye upon this doctrine, be- 
cause it seemed to have an ill eye upon her." 
He also adds : " The Millennium being prop- 
erly a reward and a triumph for those that 
came out of persecution (t. e. the martyrs), 
such as have always lived in pomp and pros- 
perity (see Rev. xvii, whole chapter) can pre- 
tend to no share in it, or be benefited by it." 
Hence the evil eye. And well may she look 
askance; for if the Millennium is yet future, 
as it is the time of the reign of the Righteous 
King, and as his kingdom rises on the ruins 
of Antichrist, Rome may well dread the 
brightness of his coming. 

But one thing will be noticed in particular: 
During all the ages since A. D. the sex-mil- 



CHRONOLOGICAL LOCATION. 43 

lennial duration of the world, before the com- 
ing of Christ and the judgment, seems to 
have been admitted on all hands. And in- 
deed, the Scriptures on which the supposition 
is founded (Ps. xc:4, and II Pet. iii:8) are ren- 
dered meaningless in this direction, without 
the seventh thousand, or Millennial Sabbath ; 
for if the six days of labor, in the work of 
Creation, typify six thousand years of proba- 
tion, then the seventh day must typify the Mil- 
lennial rest. 

Accordingly, as the power of Rome began 
to wane, and the light of the Reformation 
arose, the witnesses again appear ; and, cast- 
ing off their sackcloth robes, their testimony is 
once more heard ; feeble at first, but increas- 
ing in volume as the years roll on, till during 
the present century their testimony has risen 
like a trumpet blast, and " their sound has 
gone out into all the earth, and their words 
unto the ends of the world." The Millen- 
nium has again come to its apostolic meaning, 
and the very word suggests to the hearer the 
seventh thousand years of earth's history, 
necessitating an explanation if otherwise used. 



44 THE MILLENNIUM. 



CHAPTER II. 

SCRIPTURAL LOCATION OF THE MILLENNIUM. 

Having noticed the traditional teaching 
concerning the chronology of the Millennium, 
we now come to the inquiry, What is the 
teaching of Scripture concerning the same? 

Dr. Seiss' remark, that the passage which 
has given rise to the name, and which most 
directly and fully sets forth the Millennium, 
confessedly is Rev. xxn-7, is doubtless cor- 
rect so far as the precise time is concerned ; 
but were not the main features clearly re- 
vealed in other scriptures, I confess I should 
look upon it with suspicion. That it should 
be seen with greater clearness in the New 
Testament than in the Old, might be expected ; 
but for it not to be found in the Old Testa- 
ment at all, would clothe it with serious 
doubt ; for, as Augustine says, " The New 
Testament lies concealed in the Old (but), the 
Old Testament stands revealed in the New." 
In the words of Nathaniel West, D. D., " Be- 
lieving in the plenary verbal inspiration of 



SCRIPTURAL LOCATION. 45 

the word of God, as I do, and that the New 
Testament is a fulfillment and expansion of 
the Old, it strikes me that I ought to find the 
thousand years in the Old as well as in the 
New.'' That the Jews held the belief that 
the six Creation days typified six thousand years 
of the triumph of evil, and the seventh a 
thousand years of the reign of righteousness 
— a Millennial Sabbath — no. one who has 
studied the question will pretend to deny. 

" It is certain that the Jews interpreted 
days of millenniums, and reckoned millen- 
niums by days. Thus they say : ' In the time 
to come, which is in the last days, — on the 
sixth day, which is the sixth millennium, when 
the Messiah comes, — for the day of the holy 
blessed God is a thousand years/ * * * 
So they call the Sabbath, or seventh day, the 
seventh millennium, and interpret ' the song 
for the Sabbath day' (Ps. xcii, title), for the 
seventh millennium, for one day of the holy 
blessed God is a thousand years/ 5 Dr. Gill 
on II Pet. iii:S. 

Once more : " This solemnity (the year of 
release) as some conjecture, was a shadow of 
that everlasting Sabbath expected in the 
heavens. And this is supposed to be the 
foundation of the opinion of a learned Rabbi, ♦ 
who asserts that the world should continue 



46 THE MILLENNIUM. 

for six thousand years ; but the seventh thou- 
sand should be the great sabbatical year ; the 
six thousand answering to the six working 
days of the week, and the seventh to the Sab- 
bath." Lewis, lied. Antiq. Vol. II, p. 611. 

Such extracts might be multiplied indefi- 
nitely, but these are sufficient to show the 
opinion held by the Jews, and on what scrip- 
tural grounds. 

We now come to a Scripture which, to my 
mind, absolutely locates the Millennial reign 
at, or after the binding and incarceration of 
Satan and his hosts in the abyss, calling the 
time "many days;" using the same term Daniel 
does (chap. XK34) to point out the long night 
of martyrdom under Papal oppression. I re- 
fer to Isa. xxiv:2i-23. 

" And it shall come to pass in that day, that 
the Lord shall punish the hosts of the high 
ones that are on high, and the kings of the 
earth upon the earth. And they shall be gath- 
ered together, as prisoners are gathered in the 
pit, and shall be shut up in prison, and after 
many days shall they be visited. Then the 
moon shall be confounded, and the sun 
ashamed, when the Lord of hosts shall reign 
in Mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before 
his ancients gloriously." 

Here we have the " host of the high ones," 
or " the prince of the power of the air " (Eph, 



SCRIPTURAL LOCATION. 47 

\\\2) and his minions, bound or restrained ; 
and then after " many days " visited for final 
" punishment." The " reign " corresponds 
with Rev. XX4-6. In Isa. xxiv, "the hosts of 
the high ones" — including their leader of 
course — are shut up in the abyss for " many 
days /" in Rev. xx, Satan is bound in the abyss 
a thousand years. In the former, the "high 
ones" are visited for final punishment (see 
Revised Version margin) at end of the " many 
days;" in the latter, Satan is loosed a little 
season, and immediately engaging in another 
rebellion, is seized and cast into the lake of 
fire. In Isaiah, the Lord's dead men arise at 
his coming (chap. xxvi:i9, 21), but the wicked, 
who "will not learn righteousness, ,J "shall 
not rise," u e., at that time (see Isa. xxvi:io- 
14); in Revelation, those who reign with 
Christ live at the commencement of the thou- 
sand years, but the rest of the dead live not 
till the thousand years are ended. In Isaiah, 
the judgments of God destroy the existing 
state of things so completely that "the earth 
reels to and fro," falling to rise no more, L e. y 
in its present form, just prior to the glorious 
reign; in Revelation we have great Babylon 
destroyed (chap, xviii) and all the opposing 
evil powers — beast, fake prophet, kings of 
the earth, etc. — cast into the lake of fire be- 



48 THE MILLENNIUM. 

fore the Millennium. These marks prove 
absolutely that the chronological location of 
the events are the same, only the measure of 
time in Revelation is specific — " a thousand 
years," while in Isaiah it is simply a " multi- 
tude of days." 

Thus we have the Millennium revealed in 
the Old Testament as to its nature, location, 
and time; and it ought to silence forever 
those who claim that the glorious Sabbatismos 
is founded on a single passage of Scripture. 
These two passages seem to settle also the 
chronology of the Millennium as being the 
seventh thousand years of earth's history. 
Attempts, therefore, to locate it in the past — 
as Andreas and others have done, making it 
cover the gospel age ; or as Eusebius seems 
to have done by his misapplications of Script- 
ure, beginning it at the conversion of Con- 
stantine ; or as Prof. Bush did, commencing 
it with the enforcing of the Theodosian code, 
and ending with the taking of Constantinople 
by the Turks — must end in wresting the 
Scriptures, and making "confusion worse 
confounded." If anything can be made plain 
by words, it is plain from both Isaiah and 
John, that the period in question begins with 
the resurrection of the holy dead, and ends 
with the resurrection of the wicked. 



SCRIPTURAL LOCATION. 49 

Those who place it in the past begin by spir- 
itualizing "the first resurrection/' and thus 
open the door for fancy to make anything or 
nothing of it, just as the exigencies of a theory 
may demand. From the very nature of the 
case, those who place the Millennium in the 
past must spiritualize both resurrections, and 
also the reign. Thus Prof. Bush says on 
the reign : " Was not the steadfast cleav- 
ing to the truth, the resolute maintenance of 
the life of godliness in their souls, and the 
unshrinking resistance even unto blood to the 
claims and usurpations of an Antichristian 
power, a conduct fitly characterized as at 
once a 'living' and 'reigning' with Christ? 
True, they might be put to death ; they might 
encounter persecution, torture, and martyr- 
dom in their most appalling forms ; the fiercest 
malignity of the Beast and the unsparing ire of 
'thrones' and potentates might wreak itself 
upon their heads, still they were 'more than 
conquerors ' ; the martyr's crown was the 
badge of their blessed kingship ; and in them 
was illustriously fulfilled the truth of the in- 
spired saying: 'If we suffer, we shall also 
reign with him.' They reigned in fact in their 
sufferings." Treatise on the Millennium, pp. 
192-3. 

Can it be possible that men led by the 

4 



50 THE MILLENNIUM. 

Spirit of God can be deceived with such 
sophisms? As well might the criminal on the 
scaffold, just about to expiate his crimes with 
his life, he said to triumph or reign over the 
laws, because — when told he has but one 
minute to live — he kicks the diop from be- 
neath his feet, and launches himself into eter- 
nity that minute before his time! The law 
is vindicated, and he hangs a shameful thing. 
Did Christ " reign " on the cross, forsaken 
of men, disowned of God? Just so the mar- 
tyrs reigned, under the axe and in the flame. 
But Christ's reply to the two disciples shows 
the fallacy of such reasoning (Mark x:35~4o): 
"James and John, the sons of Zebedee, come 
unto him, saying, Master, we would that thou 
shouldest do for us whatsoever \v r e shall 
desire. And he said unto them, What would 
ye that I should do for you ? They said unto 
him, Grant unto us that we may sit, one on 
thy right hand, and the other on thy left 
hand, in thy glory. But Jesus said unto them, 
Ye know not what ye ask; can ye drink of 
the cup that I drink of? and be baptized with 
the baptism that I am baptized with? And 
they said unto him, We can. And Jesus said 
unto them, Ye shall indeed drink of the cup 
that I drink of; and with the baptism that I 
am baptized withal shall ye be baptized; but 



SCRIPTURAL LOCATION. 51 

to sit on my right hand and on my left hand 
is not mine to give ; but it shall be given to 
them for whom it is prepared." This is con- 
clusive, to drink the bitter cup was one thing-, 
to sit with him on his throne was quite an- 
other. The methods of reasoning away the 
resurrections of Rev. xx:4-6, whether by 
Bush, Witrius, or others, who place the Mil- 
lennium in the past, are equally fallacious, 
and utterly subversive of every principle of 
Divine truth. 

Deranging the order of Eschatology makes 
the words of Scripture revealing the same 
appear like Apocrypha instead of Apocalypse ; 
like a veiling of the Divine mind, instead of 
an unfolding of the same. But placing the 
events in their proper order, the words of 
Revelation, both in the Old' Testament and 
the New, describing these things, shine with 
a clearness and perspicuity that honor God, 
and enables even " the wayfaring man' 1 to 
run while he reads them, and to understand 
them too. 



52 THE MILLENNIUM, 



CHAPTER III. 

earth's baptism of fire preceding the 
millennium. 

Having, as I believe, demonstrated the 
chronological location of the Millennium, as 
the seventh thousand years of earth's history, 
we proceed to inquire for the circumstances 
attending its introduction. 

In II Peter, chapter iii, the apostle tells of 
scoffers in the last days so bold in sin that 
they become a sign of approaching judgment ; 
and in verse 12, speaks of the people of God 
as " looking for and hasting unto the coming 
of the day of God, wherein the heavens being 
on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements 
shall melt with fervent heat." " Some author 
has remarked," says Dr. Edward Hitchcock, 
" that, from the earliest times, there has been 
a loud cry of fire. We have seen that it be- 
gan with the ancient Egyptians, and was con- 
tinued by the Greeks. But in recent times it 
has waxed louder and far more distinct. The 
ancient notions about the existence of fire 
within the earth were almost entirely conject- 



EARTH'S BAPTISM OF FIRE. 53 

ural, but within the present century the mat- 
ter has been put to the test of experiment. 
Wherever, in Europe and America, the tem- 
perature of the air, the waters, and the rocks, 
in deep excavations, has been ascertained, it 
has been found higher than the mean temper- 
ature of the climate at the surface, and the 
experiment has been made in hundreds of 
places. It is found, too, that the heat in- 
creases rapidly as we descend below that 
point in the earth's crust to which the sun's 
heat extends. The mean rate of increase has 
been stated by the British Association to be 
one degree of Fahrenheit for every forty-Jive 
feet. At this rate, all known rocks would be 
melted at the depth of about sixty miles. 
Shall we hence conclude that all the matter 
of the globe below this thickness (or, rather 
for the sake of round numbers, below one 
hundred miles) is actually in a melted state? 
Most geologists have not seen how such a 
conclusion is to be avoided. And yet this 
would leave only about one eight-hundredth 
part of the earth's diameter, and about one- 
fourteenth of its contents, or bulk, in a solid 
state. How easy, then, should God give 
permission, for this vast internal fiery ocean 
to break through its envelope, and so to bury 
the solid crust that it should all be burnt up 



54 THE MILLENNIUM. 

and melted ! It is conceivable that such a 
result might take place even by natural oper- 
ations. And certainly it would be easy for a 
special divine agency to accomplish it." Time 
of the End, pp. 287-8. 

The Hebrew prophets certainly continued 
this cry, if they did not originate it (Deut. 
xxxii:22), "For a fire is kindled in mine 
anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, 
and shall consume the earth with her increase, 
and set on fire the foundations of the mount- 
ains. " Moses utters these words as the 
mouthpiece for God; and it requires but 
little imagination to suppose he refers to that 
ocean of fire reserved in the bowels of the 
earth against " the day of destruction and 
perdition of ungodly men;" or, that the last 
clause refers to volcanoes, belching forth fire 
and flame, thus demonstrating the statement, 
that beneath their foundations God has kin- 
dled his angry fire. 

Without further comment, I pass to notice 
other Scriptures. In Psalm 1:3, 4, we read: 
" Our God shall come, and shall not keep 
silence; a fire shall devour before him, and it 
shall be very tempestuous round about him. 
He shall call to the heavens from above, and 
to the earth, that he may judge his people." 
Here we have the coming of God the Judge ; 



EARTH'S BAPTISM OF FIRE. 55 

the Voice that speaks creation through ; the 
gathering of the saints together unto Him; 
and the declaration of his righteous judg- 
ment; but all is connected with the dreadful 
tempest and the all devouring fire. 

Isaiah lxvi: 14-16. " And when ye see this, 
your heart shall rejoice, and your bones shall 
flourish like an herb ; and the hand of the 
Lord shall be known toward his servants, and 
his indignation toward his enemies. For, be- 
hold, the Lord will come with fire, and with his 
chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger 
with fury, and his rebnke with flames of fire. 
For by lire and by his sword will the Lord 
plead with all flesh : and the slain of the Lord 
shall be many." Here we have the same 
accompaniments as in the previous passage ; 
but the tempest and theyzWare the prominent 
characteristics of the awe-inspiring scene. 

" I beheld till the thrones were cast down, 
and the Ancient of Days did sit, whose gar- 
ment was white as snow, and the hair of his 
head like the pure wool: his throne was like 
the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire. 
A fiery stream issued and came forth from 
before him: thousand thousands ministered 
unto him, and ten thousand times ten thou- 
sand stood before him: the judgment was set, 
and the books were opened. 1 beheld then, 
because of the voice of the great words which 
the horn spake: I beheld even till the beast 



56 THE MILLENNIUM. 

was slain, and his body destroyed, and given 
to the burning flame/' Dan. vzr.g-ii. 

In this vision the Ancient of Days appears 
seated on a throne of flame ; its wheels roll- 
ing in fire, a fiery stream going forth before 
him, like some malignant comet sweeping 
through the heavens, visiting destruction 
upon his enemies round about. And finally, 
we have the fourth beast slain, and his body 
destroyed and given to the burning flame. 
This beast is explained as being the fourth 
kingdom upon earth, and as ruling by divine 
appointment and controlling the whole earth 
(v. 23). The burning day is described in 
the most startling language, and the whole 
earth (symbolized by the fourth beast) is given 
to the burning, dissolving fire. If the objec- 
tion is made, that the scene is symbolic, I 
would reply that the destruction is complete, 
and synchronizes with the literal burning set 
forth in other Scriptures, as we have seen and 
shall see, as we pursue the subject. 

" For, behold, the day cometh, that shall 
burn as an oven ; and all the proud, yea, and 
all that do wickedly, shall be stubble : and the 
day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the 
Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither 
root nor branch. But unto you that fear my 
name shall the Sun of righteousness arise 
with healing in his wings; and ye shall go 
forth, and grow up as calves of the stall. And 



EARTH'S BAPTISM OF FIRE. 57 

ye shall tread down the wicked ; for they 
shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in 
the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of 
hosts." Mai. zzci-3. 

In the foregoing we have one of the boldest 
figures and expressions to denote a universal 
conflagration, that language could frame in so 
few words : a day that burns like an oven. 
No partial burning will exhaust the figure. 
There is nothing like it in Scripture except 
the burning of the cities of the Plain (Genesis 
xix:28). "And he looked toward Sodom and 
Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the 
plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the 
country went up as the smoke of a furnace. " 

The universality is seen in the expression, 
" all the proud, and all that do wickedly ;" 
and to cap the climax, and " make assurance 
doubly sure" that the Holy Spirit could mean 
nothing less than the consuming of the entire 
race of rebels against God, he adds : " It shall 
leave them neither root nor branch" — not a 
father, or a son, of the God-forsaken race shall 
escape. And to show how effectually the de- 
struction shall be accomplished, he continues, 
(v. 3), " And ye shall tread down the wicked; 
for they shall be ashes under the soles of your 
feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the 
Lord of hosts." Nothing but a universal con- 
flagration, that shall melt the surface of the 



58 THE MILLENNIUM. 

earth ; and, in the language of the prophet, 
"consume man and beast, the fowls of the 
heaven, and the fishes of the sea, and the stum- 
bling blocks with the wicked ;" (Zeph. i:3), 
will fill the prophetic description. The appli- 
cation is made sure, by the subject synchro- 
nizing with other passages which speak of the 
coming of the Lord, attended with the dark- 
ening tempest, and the burning flame. For, 
in the second verse, immediately after the 
consuming fire, we have the Sun of Right- 
eousness, or the Righteous Ruler, arising, 
bringing the " morning without clouds" (II 
Sam. xxiii:4), healing the wounds that sin 
hath made (Isa. xxx:26), and exalting his own 
to " dwell on high," where " bread shall be 
given them, and their water [of the river of 
life] shall be sure," (Isa. xxxiii:i6). 

We now turn to the New Testament, and 
if we find the same truth taught- there with 
equal posit iveness (and perhaps greater per- 
spicuity), we may well consider the point 
settled : 

" The field is the world ; the good seed are 
the children of the kingdom, but the tares are 
the children of the wicked one ; the enemy 
that sowed them is the devil ; the harvest is 
the end of the world ; and the reapers are the 
angels. As therefore, the tares are gathered 
and burned in the fire ; so bhall it be in the 



EARTH'S BAPTISM OF FIRE. 59 

end of this world. The Son of Man shall send 
forth his angels, and they shall gather out of 
his kingdom all things that offend, and them 
which do iniquity ; and shall cast them into a 
furnace of tire : there shall be wailing and 
gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous 
shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their 
Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear." 
Matt, xiii: 38-43. 

In this passage we have presented the ex- 
tent of the field, the kosmos, {i.e.) the whole 
habitable world (see v. 35) ; the seed sown by 
the Son of Man, and also by the enemy, the 
devil, through the whole extent of the field ; 
the division into two classes, " children ot 
the kingdom, and children of the wicked one ;" 
the harvest, representing the end of this age ; 
the tares, all that do wickedly (precisely the 
same as in Malachi), burned in the fire ; and 
then the righteous glorified, and possessing 
the kingdom under the whole heaven; (com- 
pare v. 43 with Dan. vii:27). The good seed 
is sown by Divine command and promise, in 
all the habitable globe ( Matt. xxiv:i4, an d 
Markxvi:i5), and Satan follows with the tares 
wherever the Son of Man goes. Therefore 
the burning must be co-extensive with the 
seed-sowing and the harvest. In other words, 
as the tares are sown wherever men dwell, so 
the lire must consume all their habitation. 

But if language can place anything beyond 



60 THE MILLENNIUM. 

the possibility of question, the passage we 
next proceed to consider will do it: 

" But the heavens and the earth, which are 
now, by the same word are kept in store, re- 
served unto fire against the day of judgment 
and perdition of ungodly men. But, beloved, 
be not ignorant of this one thing, that one 
day is. with the Lord as a thousand years, and 
a thousand years as one day. The Lord is 
not slack concerning his promise, as some men 
count slackness ; but is long suffering to us- 
ward, not willing that any should perish, but 
that all should come to repentance. But the 
day of the Lord will come as a thief in the 
night ; in the which the heavens shall pass 
away with a great noise, and the elements 
shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also 
and the works that are therein shall be burned 
up." II Pet. UL'j-io. 

Earth's fiery baptism is here set forth in 
such graphic language, that nothing to my 
mind, not even the poet's " Dies Iras" equals it. 

" Day of wrath, great day of burning, 
All shall melt to ashes turning, 
All foretold by seers discerning." 

In the 6th verse we have the Noachian 
deluge referred to : "The world that then 
was, being overflowed with water, perished ;" 
and thus the comparison is made to lie be- 
tween the old world drowned with water, 
and the present heavens and earth awaiting 
the deluge of fire. The overflowing of the 



EARTH'S BAPTISM OF FIRE. 61 

kosmos with water — to carry out the compar- 
ison — necessitates the whelming of the whole 
habitable globe in flames. And this is pro- 
vided for in verse 10, in terms more distinct 
than in verse 7, and more terribly awful : the 
atmosphere exploding with the intense heat of 
the conflagration, and the elements — earth, 
air, fire and water — fused into one indistin- 
guishable mass of molten matter, reducing 
the whole to a chaos worse than the prophet 
saw when he exclaimed, "X beheld the earth, 
and lo, it was without form, and void/' (Jer. 
iv:23). If it is objected that the deluge was 
only partial, (see Hirschfelder's Com. and 
others), and therefore the fire may not be 
universal; I reply, the terms used by the 
apostle, both in the original and every trans- 
lation I have consulted, will admit of nothing 
less than the complete submersion of the 
kosmos in a flood of water, and the consequent 
baptism of " the world that now is" in an 
ocean of flame. Besides, the theory of a par- 
tial flood belittles the narrative as given in 
Genesis, and impugns the wisdom of God. 
Anything less than a universal flood would 
make many expressions in the account of it 
exaggerations, and the whole story a decep- 
tion. We have " the foundations of the great 
deep broken up," or the floods in the bowels 



62 THE MILLENNIUM. 

of the earth gushing forth to the surface ; 
" the windows of heaven opened," or the 
atmosphere pouring down its treasures of 
rain to enhance the waves below. Then the 
effect of the meeting of the waters from above 
and beneath, is stated thus: u All the high 
hills that were under the whole heaven zuere 
covered ;" and lest there might be room to 
question the submersion of the entire globe in 
the watery abyss, he adds, " and the mount- 
ains were covered. 5 ' This to my mind settles 
the question of the universality of the deluge. 
But what about the wisdom of spending those 
long years building the ark, to save from a 
partial flood? Could not God have called 
Noah to go out into some part of the earth not 
to be visited by the aqueous destruction, as 
he called Abraham to leave Mesopotamia, 
that he mipfht save him from the contami- 
nation of idolatrous worship ? or as he called 
Lot to flee to the mountains, that he might 
escape the destruction about to be visited on 
those godless cities of the Plain? It may be 
claimed that the ark was needed to save the 
animals. To this we reply, the same divine 
impulse that moved the beasts and birds to 
go so readily into the ark, would have moved 
them to migrate beyond the limits of the pre- 
determined desolation. No ! the theory of a 



EARTH'S BAPTISM OF FIRE. 63 

partial flood will never meet the Divine de- 
scription of that awful judgment. It is but 
the tempter's effort to minimize the same, and 
thus to render the cry of " Peace and safety" 
more effectual, in regard to the fiery baptism 
about to be visited upon the entire world. 

In concluding this chapter, I give an extract 
from Dr. Edward Hitchcock's sermon, " Des- 
tiny of the Earth." See Time of the End, pp. 
275,6. After quoting II Pet. i ii: 1 3 , he says : 

" What, now, by a fair exegesis, is taught 
in this passage concerning the destruction 
and renovation of the world? * * * In 
the first place, this passage is to be under- 
stood literal!}'. It would seem as if it could 
hardly be necessary to present any formal 
proof of this position to any person of com- 
mon sense, who had read the passage. But 
the fact is, that men of no mean reputation 
as commentators have maintained that the 
whole of it is only a vivid figurative prophecy 
of the destruction of Jerusalem. Others sup- 
pose the new heavens and new earth, here de- 
scribed, to exist before the conflagration of the 
world. But these new heavens and new earth 
are represented as the residence of the right- 
eous, after the burning and melting of the 
earth, which, according to other parts of 
Scripture, is to take place at the end of the 



64 THE MILLENNIUM. 

world, or at the general judgment. How 
strange that, in order to sustain a favorite 
theory, able men should thus invert the order 
of events, so clearly described in the Bible ! 
Still more absurd is it to attempt to fasten a 
figurative character upon this most simple 
statement of inspiration. It is indeed true, 
that the prophets have sometimes set forth 
great political and moral changes, the down- 
fall of empires, or of distinguished men, by 
the destruction of the heavens and the earth, 
and the growing pale and darkening of the 
sun and moon. But in all these cases the 
figurative character of the description is most 
obvious ; while in the passage from Peter its 
literal character is equally obvious. Take, 
for example, this statement : ' By the word of 
God tlie heavens were of old, and the earth, stand- 
ing out of the zvater and in the water: whereby 
the zvorld that then was, being overflowed with 
water, perished: But the heavens and the earth, 
which are now, by the same word are kept in 
store, reserved unto fire, against the day of judg- 
ment and perdition of ungodly men! 

" 1 believe no one has ever doubted that the 
destruction of the world by water, here de- 
scribed, refers to Noah's deluge. Now, how 
absurd to admit that this is a literal descrip- 
tion of that event, and then to maintain the 



E AR TIPS BAP 7 ISM OF FIRE. 05 

remainder of the sentence, which declares the 
future destruction of that same world by fire, 
to be figurative in the highest degree. For 
if this destruction means only the destruction 
of Jerusalem, or any other great political or 
moral revolution, the language is one of the 
boldest figures which can be framed. Who 
that knows anything of the laws of language, 
does not see the supreme absurdity of thus 
coupling in the same sentence-, the most sim- 
ple and certain literality with the strongest of 
all figures ? What mark is given us, by which 
we may know where the boundary is between 
the literal and the metaphorical sense ? From 
what part of the Bible, or from what unin- 
spired author, can a parallel example be ad- 
duced? What but the strongest necessity, 
the most decided exegentui loci, would justify 
such an anomalous interpretation of any 
author? Nay, I do not believe any necessity 
could justify it. It would be more reasonable 
to infer that the passage had no meaning, or 
an absurd one. But surely no such necessity 
exists in the present case. Understood liter- 
ally, the passage teaches only w T hat is often 
expressed, though less full) 7 , in many parts of 
Scripture ; and, even though some of these 
other passages should be involved in a degree 
of obscurity, — and I am not disposed to deny 

5 



66 THE MILLENNIUM. 

that some obscurity rests upon one or two of 
them, — it would be no good reason for trans- 
forming so plain a description into a highly- 
wrought figurative representation ; especially 
when by no ingenuity can we thus alter more 
than one part of the sentence. I conclude, 
therefore, that, if any part of the Bible is lit- 
eral, we are thus to consider this chapter of 
Peter.' ' 

Here then, scholarship comes to the aid of 
simple faith, pronouncing the passage literal, 
recognizing the watery catacl} r sm in the 
past, and teaching us to look for the fiery 
baptism in the near future. And Dr. Edward 
Griffin says: " I could produce on this side 
a catalogue of names which would convince 
you that this has certainly been the common 
opinion of the Christian Church in every age, 
as it was also of the Jewish." 



THE RESTITUTION. 67 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE RESTITUTION PRECEDES THE 
MILLENNIUM. 

Immediately after the organic change de- 
scribed in the last chapter, termed in scientific 
phrase earth's ecpyrosis, we have the Re- 
genesis or Restitution : the New Heavens 
and the New Earth (I I Pet. iii: 1 3). This is 
shown by various Scriptures which we now 
proceed to notice ; and by numerous analogies 
and other considerations which I shall set 
forth in their order. 

We turn then to Acts iii:20, 21 : " And he 
shall send Jesus Christ, which before was 
preached unto you: whom the heaven must 
receive until the times of restitution of all 
things, which God hath spoken by the mouth 
of all his holy prophets since the world 
began." Here we have first, the coming of 
Christ (verse 20); and then, in verse 21, we 
have the "times of restitution" specified as 
the time of that coming. And this agrees 
with the passages we were considering in the 
former chapter. Thus Dan. vii:9~i 1, describes 



68 THE MILLENNIUM. 

the Ancient of Days as sitting in the burning 
judgment scene, and verses 13 and ^describe 
the coming of the Son of Man, to the same 
judgment seat, and his reception of the king- 
dom over all nations, that should not change, 
or pass away. In the 27th verse we have the 
saints of the Most High invested with the 
kingdom, conjointly with the Son of Man, 
immediately after the destruction of the last 
representative of the fourth beast (v. 26). 
The Restitution is not positively stated in this 
connection, but it is implied, as we shall see 
in examining other passages ; and even in this 
the implication is so strong, it would seem 
that it must be admitted at once, by every 
one who has not an opposing theory to sup- 
port ; for the everlasting reign of the saints 
is always referred to a world beyond the 
curse. In Malachi iv, after the consuming of 
the whole race of the wicked, as stated in 
verse 1, the Sun of Righteousness is said to 
" arise with healing in his wings," or beams 
(v. 2). Now as the natural sun is the source 
of light and life in the present world, so the 
Sun of Righteousness will be the life and the 
glory of the world to come. After the dis- 
mal night of judgment fires, closing earth's 
history under the curse, He is said to be " as 
the light of the morning when the sun riseth, 



THE RESTITUTION. 69 

even a morning without clouds." And the 
effect of that rising would be " as the tender 
grass springing out of the earth, by clear 
shining after rain" (II Sam. xxiii:4). Thus 
beautifully does the figure set forth the Res- 
titution, as immediately following the deluge 
of fire, that destroys the world lying under 
the curse. 

The New Testament follolvs the same order, 
and the specifications are so distinct it would 
hardly seem to leave room for cavil. Matt. 
xiii:40~43 locates the burning of the tares — or 
the wicked — " in the end of this age" or world ; 
and following in the same order, " the right- 
eous shine forth as- the sun in the kingdom of 
their Father." This, according to John's 
arrangement, is in the morning of the Millen- 
nium ; and according to Isa. xxiv:23, the 
glorious " reign " immediately follows the 
destruction of the earth as it was (see verse 
20); and the period of " many days " of verse 
21 covers both the reign and the time of the 
incarceration of Satan, and his host of " high 
ones'' in the abyss. Matt., 13th chapter, thus 
specifically locates the burning in the closing 
hours of the present age, and the Restitution 
rises, like the Phoenix from its ashes, to adorn 
the morning of the seventh Millenary. 

So also II Peter, 3d chapter, describes earth's 



70 THE MILLENNIUM, 

ecpyrosis as so fearful that " the world 
which now is," falls in chaos worse than that 
from which it sprang on Eden's natal morn- 
ing; but Peter, as though he would quicken a 
faith dying under the fearful outlook, exclaims: 
" Nevertheless we, according to his promise, 
look for a new heavens and a new earth." 
Thus the arrangement continues the same ; 
the six thousand years closing with the fiery 
chaos, and the seventh thousand opening 
with the new genesis, and the rising glory. 
On this, Bliss remarks: " As the saints, be- 
fore the resurrection of ' the rest of the dead/ 
'reigned with Christ a thousand years' (Rev. 
xx:4); it follows that during that period, the 
tabernacle of God is with men, when he 
dwells among them, which is an additional 
evidence that the * restitution of all things' 
(Acts. iii:2i), is at the commencement of the 
Millennium." Brief Com* on Apocalypse, page 

370. 

Speaking of the new heaven and the new 
earth, David N. Lord says : " The descent 
of the city is to take place at the commence- 
ment, manifestly from the representation that 
the marriage of the Lamb was come, and that 
his wife had prepared herself immediately 
after the destruction of great Babylon, chap- 
ter xix:7, 8; from the exhibition of the risen 



THE RESTITUTION. 71 

and glorified saints as seated on thrones and 
reigning with Christ during the thousand 
years ; and from the representation of the 
beloved city as on earth at the revolt of Gog 
and Magog, after the close of the thousand 
years." Exp. Apoc.,p. 529. 

Again, analog)' requires the Restitution to 
be perfected, and the marriage of the Lamb 
(Rev. xix:i-8), to be celebrated at the end of 
the six thousand years. For Adam was cre- 
ated and united to his bride at the close of the 
sixth creation day, and their first day was a 
sinless, painless, glorious Sabbath. To carry 
out the analogy, the second Adam will de- 
scend from heaven with his Bride, and within 
the descended marital halls of heaven, will 
rest upon an earth made new, fairer and 
brighter than Eden ever saw, in the morning 
of the Millennial Sabbath. 

Again, the seventh creation day having 
been kept as a rest, or Sabbath ; the seventh 
thousand years will be observed by Christ and 
his bride, as the " Sabbatismos that remaineth 
for the people of God" to keep (Heb. iv.rg). 
For " he shall rest in his love, he will joy over 
them with singing" (Zeph. iii: 1 7, last clause). 

We might subjoin many other conside- 
rations, all sustaining the position we have 
taken, but two or three must suffice. 



72 THE MILLENNIUM. 

And first: "-The regeneration," or Resti- 
tution, is " when the Son of Man shall sit in 
the throne of his glory," and he himself 
teaches us that that will be " when he shall 
come in his glory, and all the holy angels with 
him." Compare Matt. xix:28 and xxv:3i. 

Secondly: " The creation waiteth in hope 
for the revealing of the sons of God," that it 
shall "be delivered from the bondage of cor- 
ruption ;" but the manifestation of the sons of 
God, is " when Christ, who is our life shall 
appear'' (Rom. viii:i8— 23 ; Col. iii:4 ; I John 
iii:2) ; therefore we do not expect that "the 
whole creation" will continue for a thousand 
years afterward to be subject " to vanity," 
"groaning and travailing together in pain," as 
would be the case, if death in any form con- 
tinued, either of animals or men. 

TJiirdly : As the apostate church — which 
has lorded it over God's heritage for 1260 
years — is symbolized by a double symbol, an 
adulterous woman, gorgeously arrayed (Rev. 
xvii:3~6), and also by a city, the seat of her 
power (v. 18): so the bride of Christ — the 
true Church — is symbolized by a sun-clad 
woman, standing on the moon, adorned with 
a crown of stars (Rev. xii:i); and also by a 
city, the holy Jerusalem (Rev. xxi:io), where 
she shall reign with Him, not only a thousand 



THE RESTITUTION. 73 

years (Rev. xx:^ but thenceforward (as 
Danielsays, chap. vii:i8), "foreverand ever. 5 ' 
As the harlot was to be burned with fire 
(Rev. xvii:i6), and all that pertained to her, 
whelmed in the angry flood (Rev. xviii:2i), 
anterior to the Millennium : so the bride is 
represented as in heaven (Rev. xixiy-g), or as 
Paul says (I Thess. iv:i7), "in the air/' cele- 
brating her nuptials, and enjoying the mar- 
riage supper with the Lamb; while the judg- 
ment is being executed on the harlot; and in 
the vision of the 21st chapter, she is pre- 
sented descending "out of heaven from God," 
immediately after the enthroned One says, 
" Behold, I make all things new" (Rev. xxi: 
5-1 1). This descent must be at the very be- 
ginning of the thousand years; for the reign is 
during that time, not in heaven, but on earth 
(Rev. xx:4; compare chap. v:io); and it is 
just as absolutely in Jerusalem "the golden" 
(Isa. xxiv:23). For the thought that Christ is 
coming in all his regal glory, to reign with his 
saints a thousand years in Jerusalem as it now 
is, is preposterous ; and it would seem it 
only needs to be mentioned, for its advocates 
to see its absurdity, and abandon it forever. 

Thus Scripture and analogy combine to 
show the Restitution to be anterior to, or in 
the very morning of the seventh thousand 



74 THE MILLENNIUM. 

years. For the Sabbatismos, — the rest of 
Christ in his love (Zeph. iii : 1 7) — covers that 
period, and precludes the idea of the work of 
making all things new as going on during its 
restful hours. Every argument conspires to 
pin the Restitution clown to the closing hours 
of the six thousand years : not allowing even 
that glorious work to interlere with His sa- 
cred Millennial Sabbath. 



NATURE OF THE RESTITUTION. 75 



CHAPTER V. 

THE NATURE OF THE RESTITUTION. 

The term restitution implies something lost, 
or taken away. Accordingly we turn back- 
ward on earth's history, and tracing it up to 
her natal morning, we see her starting forth, 
dressed in her Easter robes, gayest of all the 
orbs of heaven ; waking the harmony of the 
spheres, and causing the stars of the morning 
to utter their admiration in a song of ecstatic 
joy (Job xxxviii:7). The great Creator looked 
upon the lovely scene, pronouncing it " very 
good," and exclaiming: ' v My delights are 
with the sons of men!" (Prov. viii:3 1). 

But anon the scene changed ! An enemy 
appeared in disguise among these unsophis- 
ticated human children of God ; they were 
seduced from their allegiance to the Holy 
One, and 

' ' Nature, sighing thro' all her works 
Gave signs of woe, that all was lost." 

The balm} 7 breezes, fanning the bowers of 
Eden, changed into the angry tempest, howl- 
ing the requiem of departed glory. Now, 



76 THE MILLENNIUM. 

where the myrtle and the vine disported 
themselves, — 

" There pointed brambles grew, 
Entwined with horrid thorn." 

And now also the beasts turn with fierce hate 
upon their appointed ruler. " For 

" Where infant hands fierce tigers led, 
And lions with the oxen fed ; 
These tyrants of the wood and plain, 
Now thirst for blood, and rend the slain." 

How sad the change! The Creator had 
stepped upon the scene and uttered his anath- 
ema : " Cursed is the ground for thy sake ; in 
sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; 
thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to 
thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field ; 
in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, 
till thou return unto the ground; for out of 
it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and 
unto dust shalt thou return'' (Gen. iii: 1 7— iq). 
And all these evils, toil and pain, want and 
woe, sickness and death, followed the race, 
till the deep toned miserere of our humanity 
reached the ears of the Highest; and He, 
who " so loved the world, that he gave his 
only begotten Son " to redeem that world 
lying under the curse, announced the limita- 
tion of the anathema, and added, " From 
thence, there shall be no more curse " (Rev. xxii: 



NATURE OF THE RESTITUTION. 77 

3). The manner of the removal of all the 
effects of sin with the earth — that is, in its 
present form — is thus stated in Scripture : 
" Reserved unto fire, against the day of judg- 
ment, and perdition of ungodly men " (IT Pet. 
iii:7). Thus the curse and all its effects being 
purged away, the eye of faith 

" Sees the times of restitution, 
Sees the new Creation rise." 

And the prophet evidently had that blessed 
time in view, when speaking of the procla- 
mation of the gospel, and the blessing con- 
nected with the proper reception of the same, 
he adds as the final outcome (Isa. Iv:i2, 13), 
" For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth 
with peace: the mountains and the hills shall 
break forth before you into singing, and all 
the trees of the field shall clap their hands. 
Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir 
tree, and instead of the brier shall come up 
the myrtle tree : and it shall be to the Lord 
for a^name, for an everlasting sign that shall 
not be cut off." The happy estate promised 
carries us beyond the losses and crosses, the 
mockings and rejections, the tribulation and 
persecution which are everywhere in the 
New Testament named as the Christian's 
appointed portion, in this present dispen- 
sation. Also the accompaniment — that is, the 



78 THE MILLENNIUM. 

rejoicing of inanimate nature — is the same 
attending the coming of the Lord as in other 
Old Testament Scriptures : see Psa. xcvi: 
1 1— 1 3, and xcviii:7-C). The fig tree and the 
myrtle (among the adornments of Paradise) 
are said to spring forth instead of the briar 
and the thorn — the production of the curse. 
Thus when man begins to rejoice before the 
Lord at his coming, the earth also 

" Exults to see the thistly curse repealed." 

Wenow proceed to a consideration of some 

of the Messianic prophecies, which to my 

mind clear!) 7 teach the state of things during 

that blissful period. Here is Isaiah, 35th 

chapter : 

" The wilderness and the solitary place shall 
be glad and the desert shall rejoice, and blos- 
som as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly, 
and rejoice even with joy and singing: the 
glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the 
excellency of Carmel and Sharon ; they shall 
see the glory of the Lord, and the excellency 
of our God. Strengthen ye the weak hands, 
and confirm the feeble knees. Say to them 
that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: 
behold, your God will come with vengeance, 
even God with a recompense ; he will come 
and save you. Then the eyes of the blind 
shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall 
be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap 
as a hart, and, the tongue of the dumb sing: 



NATURE OF THE RESTITUTION. 79 

for in the wilderness shall waters break out, 
and streams in the desert. And the parched 
ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty 
land springs of water: in the habitation of 
dragons, where each lay, shall be grass with 
reeds and rushes. And a highway shall be 
there, and a way, and it shall be called The 
way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass 
over it ; but it shall be for those : the wayfar- 
ing men, though fools, shall not err therein. 
No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast 
shall go up thereon : it shall not be found 
there; but the redeemed shall' walk there : 
and the ransomed of the Lord shall return, 
and come to Zion w T ith songs and everlasting 
joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy 
and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall 
flee away." 

The wilderness and the solitary place being 
made "glad," denotes a restoration to cheer- 
fulness and activity ; a change from gloom 
to glory. The same term is used by the 
poetic seer (Psa. xcvi and xcviii), when he 
calls upon the floods and seas, the hills and 
fields, to " rejoice together before the Lord ; 
because he cometh to judge the world in 
righteousness, and the people with his truth;" 
plainly implying that the " creation " will 
cease her groaning (Rom. viii:22) and robe 
herself in garments of beauty, at the approach- 
ing reign of the Righteous King. And this 
thought is confirmed by the last clause of 



80 THE MILLENNIUM. 

verse i, " The desert shall rejoice and blos- 
som as the rose." Her arid wastes become 
redolent with beauty ; and her glowing sands, 
or mocking mirage (Revised Ver. v. 7, mar- 
gin),^ pool, a springing fountain, a joy for- 
ever. " Blossoming abundantly " (v. 2) indi- 
cates perennial bloom. The flowers of that 
Paradise shall not wither, nor her leaves fall 
or decay. The " rejoicing with joy and sing- 
ing " is the outcome of the joy which the 
beatific vision inspires in the hearts of the 
dwellers in that empyreal clime. " The glory 
of Lebanon shall be given to it," implies that 
the beautiful cedars of that famed mountain 
shall not be confined to their ancient home, 
but be given for adornment to the once waste 
places of the now fair heritage of the sons of 
God. Of "the excellency of Carmel," the 
American Encyclopaedia says: " Its ver} 7 
name means woodland, or garden land," and 
it adds, "Although cultivation has ceased, 
enough remains in the timber, the wild olive, 
and the pasture, to bear out its ancient 
repute." Kitto says: "The mountain well 
deserves its Hebrew name (Carmel — country 
of vineyards and gardens). * * * On its 
summit are pines and oaks, and further down 
olives and laurel trees, everywhere plentifully 
watered. It is entirely covered with ver- 



NATURE OF THE DESTITUTION. 81 

dure." Some writer has remarked: " As 
the mariner approaches it from the great sea 
westward, the view is most imposing; grand 
beyond description; seeming more like the 
enchantment of a fairy dream, than a sober 
reality." The fields and flowers of " Sharon " 
are included in the same illustration ; its roses 
having passed into a proverb, as the emblem 
of Him " who is altogether lovely." And 
when this matchless beauty shall be given to 
an " inheritance incorruptible, undefiled," the 
prophet exclaims, " They shall see the glory 
of the Lord, and the excellency of our God." 
That this vision and these promises of com- 
ing beauty and blessedness might have their 
designed effect, — to encourage the weak and 
the feeble ; to lift up those who are bowed 
down under the weight of woe and discour- 
agement that rests upon a world lying under 
the burden which sin has brought — he utters 
the exhortation or command, of verses 3 and 
4. Thus making it the duty of the watchman 
to proclaim the coming of the Lord with a 
recompense of glory, for all that "look for 
Him," and trust in Him ; and ' 4 to recompense 
indignation and wrath, tribulation and 
anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth 
evil." The physical effects upon the race of 
mankind, and especially upon the invalids of 
6 



82 THE MILLENNIUM, 

that race, are set forth in verses 5 and 6. The 
eyes of the blind are opened to see the beau- 
ties of the new creation ; and the ears of the 
deaf are unstopped to enjoy the harmony of 
its music. The lame man leaps like a hart, 
re-enacting the scene at the temple (Acts iii:8), 
only on a grander scale. The tongue of the 
dumb is loosed to sing the high praises of the 
Lord, as the fountains break out in the wilder- 
ness, and the streams gush forth to fertilize 
the desert sands. Verse 7 has been noticed 
in connection with v. 1. Instead of ^drag- 
ons'' the Revised Version gives "jackals;" 
and the promise is that, " where they lay shall 
be grass with reeds and rushes.'' In verses 8 
and 9 we have " a highway," called " The way 
of holiness," or the holy way : the King's high- 
way from the ends of the earth, up to the 
holy city. " That is spiritual" says the 
objector, "and is shown to be so, by being 
called 'The way of holiness.' It may be a 
spiritual way, but it is not a spirit way. It 
must be a literal way, else the expressions, 
" the unclean shall not pass over it," " no lion 
shall be there,'' "no ravenous beast shall go 
up thereon," are wholly misleading. But the 
affirmative expressions, "the wayfaring men, 
though fools (the redemption in Christ saves 
even the imbecile) shall not err therein," and 



NATURE OF THE RESTITUTION. 83 

" the redeemed shall walk there;" are clear 
as to the occupants of that way. To make it 
a spiritual way, of holy walk or life, would 
be charging God with forbidding the unclean, 
or wicked, to come to that holy state. It 
would be making Him affirm that of the fool 
which cannot be true, in this world, from the 
very nature of things. Therefore we con- 
clude, that as the ancient nations had their 
great thoroughfares, from remote provinces 
to their capitals — as for example, the Appian 
way from Brundusium to Rome — so the great 
King will have a way, or ways, for the inhab- 
itants of distant realms to come " from one 
new moon to another, and from one Sabbath 
to another to worship before the Lord " (Isa. 
lxvr.23). 

Verse 10 confirms this conclusion. The 
great feasts of the Jews — Passover, Pentecost, 
and Tabernacles — were especial seasons of 
" joy and gladness " (Exod. xxiii:i4-i7 ; xxxiv: 
22-24; Deut. xvi:i6, 17). But sometimes 
sickness and death prevented attendance at 
these feasts, causing great sorrow and mourn- 
ing; and even those who waited on the sick, 
and buried the dead, were unfitted to join in 
the general joy (Num. ix:6, 7). But, "in the 
regeneration, when the Son of Man shall sit in 
the throne of his glory " (Matt. xix:28), there 



84 THE MILLENNIUM. 

shall be nothing to hinder the festivities, or 
mar the universal gladness: for "the ran- 
somed of the Lord shall return, and come to 
Zion (to those monthly, or annual feasts), with 
songs, and everlasting joy upon their heads : 
they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow 
and sighing shall flee away." Being crowned 
with joy, indicates its completeness ; not ajar- 
ring note will interrupt the general harmony. 
The perfection of that blessed state is further 
assured by the promise, that " sorrow and 
sighing shall flee away," — anticipating another 
great voice from heaven (Rev. xxi:3, 4), say- 
ing, " God shall wipe away (literally wipe 01 t) 
all tears from their eyes ; and there shall 
no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, 
neither shall there be any more pain ; for the 
former things (all that caused pain) are passed 
away." Thus the Millennial state is assured 
to be a sinless, consequently, a painless, sorrozv- 
less, deathless state. And its blessedness 
consists not merely of negations, for eternal 
union with God is assured, — " in whose pres- 
ence is fullness of joy, and at whose right 
hand there are pleasures forevermore" (Psa. 
xvim). While the glowing promises re- 
corded by the seer of Patmos(Rev. xx:i~7 and 
2 1 st and 22d chapters) are sufficient for us 
to rest our faith on, and to cause us to wait 



NATURE OF THE RESTITUTION. 85 

with assured hope of seeing earth robed in 
beauty such as Eden never saw ; and her in- 
habitants reveling in a glory such as the live- 
liest imagination never conceived ; and her 
sons and daughters hymning their praises, in 
strains "such as earth has heard never" since 
" the morning stars sang together, and ail the 
sons of God shouted for joy" (Job xxxviii:/). 
Yet it is not necessary to rest our hope on 
any single prophecy, or on the accumulated 
predictions of any one writer of the holy 
Book. Of these Messianic times, Peter well 
says, " God hath spoken by the mouth of all 
his holy prophets since the world began" 
(Actsiii:2i). With this thought in our mind, 
let us turn to Isa. IXVH7-23 : 

" For, behold, I create new heavens and a 
new earth : and the former shall not be remem- 
bered, nor come into mind. But be ye glad 
and rejoice forever in that which I create : 
for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, 
and her people a joy. And I will rejoice in 
Jerusalem and joy in my people: and the 
voice of weeping shall no more be heard in 
her, nor the voice of crying. There shall be 
no more thence an infant of days, nor an old 
man that hath not filled his days : for the child 
shall die an hundred years old ; but the sin- 
ner being an hundred years old, shall be 
accursed. And they shall build houses and 
inhabit them, they shall plant vineyards and 
eat the fruit of them. They shall not build 



86 THE MILLENNIUM. 

and another inhabit ; they shall not plant, and 
another eat : for as the days of a tree are 
the days of my people, and mine elect shall 
long enjoy the work of their hands. They 
shall not labor in vain, nor bring forth 
for trouble; for they are the seed of the 
blessed of the Lord, and their offspring- with 
them. And it shall come to pass, that before 
they call, I will answer ; and while they are 
yet speaking, I will hear. The wolf and the 
lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall 
eat straw like the bullock: and dust shall be 
the serpent's meat. They shall not hurt nor 
destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the 
Lord/' 

That this is a Millennial prophecy, would 
hardly seem to admit of a doubt ; yet so astute 
a reasoner as Dr. Edward Hitchcock gives it 
away. After urging the literality of Peter's 
statement of the burning of the present world, 
and the new heavens and new earth, succeed- 
ing in an immortal state, he thus continues: 
" Isaiah therefore, may be giving a figurative 
description of a glorious state of the church 
in this world, under the terms ' new heavens 
and new earth,' emblematic of those real new 
heavens and new earth beyond the grave, de- 
scribed by Peter. And hence, it seems to me, 
the language of the prophet should not be 
allowed to set aside, or modify, the plain 
meaning of the apostle.'' 



NATURE OF THE RESTITUTION. 87 

His difficulty appears to be in placing the 
burning clay and the general judgment, at the 
end of the thousand years instead of at the com- 
mencement, where II Pet. iii, compared with 
Matt. xxv:3i-(6, clearly places it. He also 
seems to be troubled with the thought that 
Isa. Ixv recognizes births and death as accom- 
paniments of the state therein described. And 
so, instead of reviewing his theory, he gives 
away the prophecy. But this were to aban- 
don the Rock of Truth, and build on the 
quicksands of our own imagination. There- 
lore let us look at the subject, and see if the 
Scriptures may not be harmonized without 
sacrificing so important a portion of the Di- 
vine record. 

" Behold I create uezu heavens, and a new 
earths The expression " create" seems to indi- 
cate a fashioning of the new heavens and 
earth out of a chaos like that from which the 
present earth and heavens arose, " in the beofin- 
ning." No moral, or -spiritual renovation, will 
meet the requirements of the case. Nothing 
but the hand of the great Architect himself, 
le-fashioning the " melted elements/' and fill- 
ing the " void" left by the avenging judgment 
{ires, will match the faith expressed in II 
Pet. iii: 1 3 ; and all the special pleading of fine 
spun theories has never found a "promise" to 



88 THE MILLENNIUM. 

which Peter could have referred, but the one 
under consideration. We conclude therefore, 
that as Peter predicated his faith upon this 
passage, Isaiah must have been prophesying 
of Millennial glory. This is further con- 
firmed by the last clause of verse i, " The 
former shall not be remembered, nor come 
into mind," (/. e., to be desired; comp. Num. 
xi:4-6). This must refer to the earth lying un- 
der the curse, as contrasted with the new 
heavens and earth ; or else it refers to a moral 
renovation, overshadowing all the efforts of 
the Church in the past, and so far transcend- 
ing the triumphs of apostles and prophets, 
and holy men of old, that they should pass 
into forgetfulness, and be desired no more-. 
Shame on the commentator, who could con- 
ceive such a contradictory "hypothesis." 
The very terms ot the prophecy preclude 
this last idea, — as will be seen further on, — 
while the New Testament teachings forbid 
the thought, filling as they do, the "latter 
times" with apostasy and perils (I Tim. iv and 
II Tim. iii), and covering the last 1260 years 
with the triumphs of Antichrist, who will 
only be destroyed by the consuming fires 
attending the coming of the Holy One, leav- 
ing no place this side that coming for the fan- 
cied reign of righteousness. 



NATURE OF THE RESTITUTION. 89 

"But be ye glad and rejoiee FOREVER in that 
which I create, etc"(v. 18), evidently point- 
ing to the time when Jerusalem shall be 
called " the throne of the Lord " (Jer. iii:i7) ; 
when the "Lord of hosts shall reign in Mount 
Zion and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients 
gloriously" (Isa. xxiv:23). 

"And the voice of zveeping shall no more be 
heard in her, nor the voice of crying ." the time 
having come when u God shall wipe away all 
tears" (Rev. xxi:4). Tears are the symbols of 
grief, sorrow, mourning, etc.; the absence of 
these indicates the universal joy. " There 
shall be no more t lie nee an infant of days ." no 
helpless infants. Those who reach that im- 
mortal state will be perfectly fitted for the 
station they are to occupy. " Nor an old man 
that hath not filled his days : " "for the child shall 
die an hundred years old " The idea seems to 
be, that the "infant of days" dying here shall 
in the resurrection be raised to that glorious 
home, as completely fitted for the station he 
is to occupy, as though he had lived an hun- 
dred years. If born there it would invalidate 
the statement; for when born, all would be 
infants of days, no matter how long they after- 
ward lived. "But the sinner being (or although) 
an hundred years old, shall be accursed :" fill- 
ing his days in sin here, and not "applying 



90 THE MTLLBNMUM. 

his heart unto wisdom ;" (Ps. xc:i2) he " shall 
be accursed ;" separated from the people of 
God. Such shall never reach that holy, 
happy land; for nothing that defiteth shall 
enter there ! 

" They shall build houses and inhabit them; 
they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of 
them" " How sensual !" says the objector; 
" building and planting, eating and drinking 
in the immortal state. " And why not ? An- 
gels have their appointed food (Ps. lxxviii:25). 
Adam was to " dress and keep" Eden's gar- 
den ; also to " eat freely of the fruit" (Genesis 
ii : r 5 , 16). And this is but a restoration, or 
bringing back of the Edenic state. " Yes ; 
but the working and building" Some kinds 
of work, — and a proper amount of it — are 
always esteemed a pleasure. See the prudent 
housewife, toiling about her household duties, 
till almost weary of life; but her task being 
done, how readily she turns to her plants, or 
flower garden ! Behold the smile lighting up 
her eyes, or dimpling her cheeks, as she be- 
holds her lilies in all their gorgeous array ; 
her heliotropes and roses giving forth their 
exquisite perfumes! Such toil becomes a 
pleasure, an ecstatic delight. May it not be 
so in that paradise restored? " But the 
building.'' Does not this objection impugn 



NATURE OF THE RESTITUTION. 91 

the wisdom of the Almighty ? Who charmed 
Abraham away from his country, to dwell in 
tents, that in " the world to come" he might 
enjoy a city which God himself should build ? 
Heb. xi:io. And who declared he was not 
ashamed of those who. waited for the fulfill- 
ment of the promise, and as a witness of his 
pleasure, assured them " he had prepared for 
them KcityT" Heb. xi: 1 5. Who also himself 
commanded Solomon to build Him an house ? 
I Chron. xx viii:6. Perhaps the objector would 
prefer to have them " dwell safely in the 
wilderness, and sleep in the woods" (Ezek. 
xxxiv:25). But if I rightly understand the 
Bible, they will have an opportunity for 
both. 

Verse 22 conveys the idea that there will 
be no coveting the fruit of others' labors, to 
take them away ; and no such thing as being 
taken from them by death, or otherwise, to 
prevent their being enjoyed by those who had 
labored for them. This last thought is con- 
firmed by the clause following: "For as the 
days of a tree si tall be the days of my people" 
Justin Martyr reads this, " as the days of the 
tree of life," etc., and this seems to have been 
the opinion of the immediate successors of 
the apostles. This being correct, it would 
harmonize the whole, and set the seal of the 



92 THE MILLENNIUM. 

divine approval upon the exposition of the 
previous verses. 

Verse 23. No laboring in vain ; no bringing 
forth for trouble ; for the blessing of the Lord 
is upon them, "and their offspring with them." 
Whole families — in some instances— will be 
there. Praise the Lord ! Verse 24 shows 
God ever present; prayer answered while 
the thought is yet in embryo, in the heart of 
the petitioner. 

Verse 25 pictures the wolf and the lamb 
feeding at the same stall ; the lion and the bul- 
lock in sweet accord, both satisfied with the 
straw from the summer threshing floor; the 
serpent having become so harmless, that "the 
sucking child shall play on the hole of the 
asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand 
on the cockatrice's den:" and then the divine 
assurance, " They shall not hurt, nor destroy 
in all my holy mountain, saith the Lord," 
stamps the whole scene with immortality ! 
For where death is, there will be " sorrow 
and crying." But as He "who cannot lie," 
affirms the absence of these, and declares 
there shall be nothing to HURT; and as death 
does hurt and destroy, we must infer that when 
(Isa. Ixv:i7~25) is fulfilled, death must have 

" left his ancient leign 
And vanquished, quit the field." 



NATURE OF THE RESTITUTION. 93 

In the words of the poet then let us pray : 

11 Haste then, and wheel away a shattered world, 
Ye slow revolving seasons ! we would see 
(A sight to which our eyes are strangers yet), 
A world that does not dread, and hate His laws, 
And suffer for its crime ; would learn how fair 
The creature is, that God pronounces good." 

— Cowfter. 

But we have only commenced to bring out 
the beauties and blessings of that Restitution, 
as taught by this evangelic seer. Take also 
the following : 

" Fear not ; for thou shalt not be ashamed : 
neither be thou confounded ; for thou shalt 
not be put to shame ; for thou shalt forget the 
shame of thy youth, and shalt not remember 
the reproach of thy widowhood any more. 
For thy Maker is thine husband; the Lord of 
hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the 
Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole 
earth shall he be called. For the Lord hath 
called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved 
in spirit, and a wife of youth, when thou wast 
refused, saith thy God. For a small moment 
have I forsaken thee ; but with great mercies 
will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my 
face from thee for a moment ; but with ever- 
lasting kindness will 1 have mercy on thee, 
saith the Lord thy Redeemer. * * * For 
the mountains shall depart, and the hills be 
removed ; but my kindness shall not depart 
from thee, neither shall the covenant of my 
peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath 



94 THE MILLENNIUM, 

mercy on thee. O thou afflicted, tossed with 
tempest, and noX. comforted, behold, I will lay 
thy stones with fair colors, and lay thy foun- 
dations with sapphires. And I will make thy 
windows of agates, and thy gates of carbun- 
cles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones. 
And all thy children shall be taught of the 
Lord ; and great shall be the peace of thy 
children. " Isa. liv. 

" The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee, 
the fir tree, the pine tree, and the box together, 
to beautify the place of my sanctuary ; and I 
will make the place of my feet glorious" 
(Isa. Ix:i3). The same adornments are here 
as in chapters xxxv and lxv. The " glory of 
Lebanon" was her cedars; and these with 
the other beautiful trees named, with their 
towering height and luxuriant foliage, shall 
be brought together in all their Paradisiacal 
loveliness, to glorify his own "footstool" 
(Comp. Isa. lxvin). And to show that God 
will do in those " Times of refreshing" 
for the happiness and glory of his own, he 
continues, verses 17-21 : 

" For brass I will bring gold, and for iron I 
will bring silver, and for wood brass, and for 
stones iron : I will also make thy officers 
peace, and thine exactors righteousness. 
Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, 
wasting nor destruction within thy borders ; 
but thou shaft call thy walls Salvation, and 
thy gates Praise. The sun shall be no more thy 



NATURE OF THE RESTITUTION. 95 

light by day ; neither for brightness shall the 
moon give light unto thee : but the Lord shall 
be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God 
thy glory. Thy sun shall no more go down ; 
neither shall thy moon withdraw itself : for 
the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and 
the days of thy mourning shall be ended. 
Thy people also shall be all righteous: they 
shall inherit the land forever, the branch of 
my planting, the work of my hands, that I 
may be glorified." 

The figures of poetry, the beauties of nature, 
the versatility of language, are all exhausted 
in describing the grandeur of the inheritance 
of the redeemed. Other questions also are 
settled by the 21st verse, " Thy people shall 
be all righteous" — there will be no mixed mul- 
titude there. No apostasy, no loss of their 
holy estate either: for " they shall inherit the 
land forever." 

We now turn to the New Testament; and, 
although it does not go into particulars, as 
do the prophets; yet it explicitly indorses all 
their utterances on this glorious theme. 
Thus, to quote again : 

" And he shall send Jesus Christ which 
before was preached unto you : whom the 
heaven must receive until the times of resti- 
tution of all things, which God hath spoken 
by the mouth of all his holy prophets since 
the world began." Acts m;20, 21 



96 THE MILLENNIUM. 

Christ remains interceding Priest till the 
time comes to fulfil these Old Testament pre- 
dictions of coming bliss. So, whether Moses 
speaks of coming glory (Num. xiv:2i); or 
David of the peaceful reign (Ps. lxxii:7, 8); 
or Isaiah of " the little child " leading the 
leopard and the lion (Isa. xi:6); or Jeremiah of 
the rise and reign of the Righteous Branch 
(Jer. xxiii:5); or Ezekiel of the everlasting 
covenant of peace (Ezek. xxxvii:26, 27); or 
Daniel, of the wise shining as the brightness 
of the firmament (Dan, xir.3); or Hosea, of the 
ransom from death, and redemption from the 
grave of the holy ones (Hos. xiii:i4) ; or Joel, 
of the mountains dropping down wine, and 
the hills flowing with milk (Joel iii:i8); or 
Amos, of the amazing fertility of the soil 
(Amos ix:i3); or Obadiah, of Saviour's com- 
ing on Mount Zion and the kingdom being 
the Lord's (v. 21); or Micah, of the first do- 
minion coming to the daughter of Jerusalem 
(Micah iv:8); or Habakkuk, of the glory of 
the Holy One covering the heavens, and the 
earth being full of his praise (Hab. iii:3); or 
Zephaniah, of the Lord resting in his love, 
and rejoicing over them with singing (Zeph. 
iii:i7); or Zechariah, of the time when even 
bells of the horses should have inscribed on 
them "Holiness to the Lord 1 ' (Zech. xiv.20); 



NATURE OF THE RESTITUTION. jtf 

or Malachi, of the Sun of Righteousness arising 
with healing in his wings (Mai. iii:2), Peter 
indorses them all as applying to the times of 
Restitution ; thus making them harbingers of 
Millennial rest. 

Paul also adds his testimony to present 
rt vanity " and coming glory ; locating the lat- 
ter at the "redemption of our body " (7. e., of 
the saints), in the morning of the Sabbatismos 
awaiting the people of God : 

"For the earnest expectation of the cre- 
ation, waiteth for the revealing of the sons 
of God. For the creation was subjected to 
vanity, hot of its own will, but by reason of 
him who subjected it in hope, because the 
CREATION itself also shall be delivered from the 
bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory 
of the children of God, For we know that the 
■whole CREATION groaneth and travaileth in 
pain with us \inargin\ until now. And not 
only so, but ourselves also, which have the 
first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves 
groan within ourselves, waiting for the 
adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body " 
Ron i viii: 19-23, Rev. Ver. 

Thus the whole creation, animate and inan- 
imate, is represented as uniting in one mighty 
prayer for the hastening of 1 hat glorious man- 
ifestation that shall surely come. And as the 
Psalmist represents the mountains and hills, 
the woods and fields, the seas and floods, as 



98 THE MILLENNIUM. 

lifting up their hands and rejoicing together 
" before the Lord, for he cometh " * * * 
so Paul seems — under the expression " the 
whole creation^ — to gronp together, the 
groaning earthquake, the bellowing thunder, 
the deep-toned tidal wave, the shrieking 
cyclone, the moanings of suffering humanity, 
uniting in unutterable groanings as the might)' 
throes, the birth-pangs of a new creation. 

Turning once more to II Pet. iii we find 
him (v. 3) giving one of the most specific signs 
of coming judgment, and then after having 
described earth's ecpyrosis (vs. 10-12) in the 
most graphic terms that language could in- 
vent, he adds (v. 13), " Nevertheless we, 
according to his promise, look for new heav- 
ens, and a new earth wherein dwelleth right- 
eousness." " According to his promise." Un- 
less Isa. Ixv:i7 gives us the promise, we search 
the inspired record in vain to find it. If that 
is the promise (of which there cannot be a 
reasonable doubt) then Peter indorses the whole, 
and what he omits of the description of the 
restitution Isaiah supplies. 

" Wherein dwelleth righteousness" (that is, 
righteous persons). Now if this means any- 
thing, it must mean that none but the right- 
eous shall ever be found in that Millennial 
Paradise. And this is confirmed by Isa. lx:2i 



NATURE OF THE RESTITUTION. 99 

— doubtless speaking of the times, as I have 
before noticed. » 

We turn then, finally, to Rev. xxi:i), 
" And I saw a new heaven and a new earth : 
for the first heaven and the first earth were 
passed away ; and there was no more sea." 
Here we see a new heaven and a new earth, 
and the Revelator at once identifies them as 
those that Peter looked for. As that was 
seen rising as it were from the fiery baptism 
of the first earth and heaven, so as these come 
into view, John says, "The first heaven and 
the first earth were passed away." The pres- 
ent world is the first we know about in our 
experience, and is everywhere recognized as 
the first in the word of God ; or, as " the world 
that now is" and the new heavens and earth 
as "that which is to come." If, as Bliss re- 
marks, " The new heaven and the new earth 
are symbols of the new order of things" 
{Com. on Apoc. p. 365), we accept it; and as 
the thing symbolized must be greater, in sin 
or in righteousness, in gloom or in glory, than 
the symbol; so these shall be so much more 
resplendent than the former, that those "shall 
not be remembered nor come into mind " (Isa. 
Ixv:i7). The tabernacle of God is now with 
men, which is explained to be his dwelling 
with them (v. 4). This is the tearless state — 



100 THE MILLENNIUM. 

no sorrow, nor crying — synchronizing with 
Isa. Ixv:i9, and once more demonstrating 
the correctness of our application of that 
prophecy. 

" And he that sat upon the throne said. 
Behold, I make all things new. And he said 
unto me, Write : for these words are true and 
faithful. And he said unto me, it is done. I 
am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the 
end. I will give unto him that is athirst of 
the fountain of the water of life freely. He 
that overcometh shall inherit all things; and 
I will be his God, and he shall be my son ,? vs. 

5-7- 

There is no symbol here, but a simple verbal 

statement of the great Maker of all things, of 
his determination to make anew all that sin 
had marred. That there might be no alle- 
gorizing, or confounding of things that differ, 
He adds: " These words are true and faith- 
ful." He then pledges his own character as 
the First and the Last for the fulfilment of 
the promise. And as a panacea for all thirst- 
ing after forbidden things, he promises " the 
water of life freely." The overcomer is also 
encouraged with the assurance that he " shall 
inherit these things," and be owned as God's 
son. 

" And he shewed me a pure river of water 
of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the 
throne of, God and of the Lamb. In the 



NATURE OF THE RESTITUTION. 101 

midst of the street of it, and on either side of 
the river, was there the tree of life, which bare 
twelve maimer 0/" fruits, and yielded her fruit 
every month : and the leaves of the tree were 
for the healing of the nations. And there 
shall be no more curse : but the throne of God 
and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his ser- 
vants shall serve him." Rev. xxii:\~^. 

We have here the river of the water of life: 
like the river that went out of Eden (Gen. iil 
10) to water all the garden of God ; but now 
the river proceeds "from the throne of God 
and of the Lamb." " On either side of the 
river" grows "the tree of life," bearing 
"twelve manner of fruits, and yielding her 
fruit every month." Thus the seer of Patmos 
eclipses the prophet of Tekoa, making the 
fruit harvest perennial, and the variety all 
that the Epicurean could desire. As sin 
brought the curse upon the old world, and 
with it all the evils that marred its beauty, or 
destroyed its peace, the promise that " there 
should be no more curse " is the assurance of 
God and of the Lamb, that evil — " like a creep- 
ing pestilence'' — shall no more have a place 
in the fair heritage of the sons of God. And 
as the eye of faith takes in the grandeur of 
the scene ; beholding the mountain tops wav- 
ing their lofty pines, the trees of the garden 
bending with ambrosial fruit, the fields laugh- 



102 THE MILLENNIUM. 

ing in their abundance, the vales smiling with 
their freshness and flowers, the mountain 
sides mantled with perennial green ; and as 
we listen to the songs of praise, rising from 
the hearts and echoing from the tongues of 
the dwellers in that Paradise restored, we 
exultingly exclaim : 

" O scenes surpassing fable, and yet true, 
Scenes of accomplished bliss ! which who can see, 
Though but in distant prospect, and not feel 
His soul refreshed with foretaste of the joy ? 
Rivers of gladness water all the Earth, 
And clothe all climes with beauty. * * * 

" The various seasons woven into one, 
And that one season an eternal spring. 
The garden fears no blight, and needs no fence ; 
For there is none to covet ; all are full. 
The lion, and the libbard and the bear,. 
* Graze with the fearless flocks, all bask at noon 

Together, or all gambol in the shade 
Of the same grove, and drink one common stream. 

*' All creatures worship man, and all mankind 

One Lord, one Father. * * 

* -K- * * # * 

One song employs all nations ; and all cry, 

Worthy the Lamb, for he was slain for us !' 
The dwellers in the vales and on the rocks 
Shout to each other, and the mountain tops 
From distant mountains catch the flying joy." 

— Cowper, 



INHABIT ANTS OF RENEWED EARTH. 103 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE INHABITANTS OF THE RENEWED EARTH. 

We may not be able to name all the inhab- 
itants of the renewed earth, nor to describe 
them, give their genealogy, or characteristics, 
so that they would be known at sight; but I 
trust to be able to point out some of them very 
clearly, from intimations given in the word 
of God ; and also tiie general characteristics 
ot all the dwellers in that long-looked for 
home of the blessed. 

It anything is clear from the Bible, it is 
that Clirist sets up his kingdom at his commg. 
And so it is written: " When the Son of Man 
shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels 
with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of 
his glory" (Matt. xxv:3i). "I charge thee 
therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus 
Christ, who shall judge the quick and the 
dead at h ; s appearing and his kingdom" 
(11 Tim.ivn). "And I saw thrones, and they 
sat upon them, and judgment was given 
unto them ; and / saw the souls of them 
that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, 



104 THE MILLENNIUM. 

and for the word of God, and which had not 
worshiped the beast, neither his image, neither 
had received his mark upon their foreheads, 
or in their hands ; and they lived and reigned 
with Christ a thousand years" Rev. xx:^ 

These testimonies are explicit as to the 
commencement of his reign : " at his coming ;" 
" at his appearing and his kingdom ;" they 
reigned " with Christ the thousand years." 
We notice next the extent of his kingdom: (Dan. 
vii:27) " And the kingdom and dominion 
and the greatness of the kingdom under the 
whole heaven, shall be given to the people of 
the saints of the Most High, whose kingdom 
is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions 
shall serve and obey him ;" (Matt. xiii:38), 
"The field is the ivorld" — used interchange- 
ably with kingdom (v. 41); " And the seventh 
angel sounded ; and there were great voices 
in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this 
world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, 
and of his Christ; and he shall reign forever 
and ever." Rev. xi:i$. 

The extent of the kingdom then is "under 
the whole heaven;" " the field " (the kosmos, 
or whole habitable globe), all "the kingdoms 
of this world." 

Those who shall be permitted to inhabit 
Christ's kingdom, when thus established, will 



INHABITANTS OF RENEWED EARTH. 105 

determine the character, whether mortals or 
immortals, mixed, or "chosen of God from 
the foundation of the world." 

WHO THEN SHALL INHABIT IT? 

We answer first negatively: " Know ye not 
that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom 
of God? Be not deceived : neither fornicators, 
nor idolators, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, 
nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor 
thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor 
revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the 
kingdom of God !" (I Cor. vi:g, 10.) " Now 
the works of the flesh are manifest, which are 
these i Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, las- 
civiousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, 
variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, 
heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, 
revelings, and such like: of the which I tell 
you before, as I have also told you in time 
past, that they which do such things shall not 
inherit the kingdom of God" (Gal. VH9-21); 
" For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor 
unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an 
idolator, hath any inheritance in the kingdom 
of Christ and of God " (Eph. v:5). 

I see no way to avoid, or get around this 
plain testimony, except by making a distinc- 
tion between inheriting and inhabiting (i. e., in 



106 THE MILLENNIUM. 

the sense of possessing, or enjoying). That 
there is a difference in the meaning of the 
words, I do not pretend to deny ; but as used 
in this place, there seems to be only a dis- 
tinction of terms, and not of meaning. 

Turning once more to Paul's writings, we 
read (I Cor. xv:5o), " Now this I say, breth- 
ren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the 
kingdom of God ; neither doth corruption in- 
herit incorruption." If this doesnotsettle the 
question that man in a natural, or mortal state, 
cannot have part in the kingdom of God, I 
know of no terms that could settle it. Rev. 
Alvah Hovey, D. D., LL. D., in Biblical Escha- 
tology, says, on this point : " Paul declares that 
'flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom 
of God,' because, as he conceives them, and 
as his readers would understand their mean- 
ing, they signify mortal, corruptible bodies. 
It is from this point of view only that he pro- 
nounces them unable to inherit the kingdom 
of God. In other words, Christ meant by 
the expression, 'flesh and bones,' a real, ma- 
terial body, as distinguished from a spirit, 
while Paul chose the expression ' flesh and 
blood ' to denote a frail, perishable body as 
distinguished from one that is imperishable." 
This explanation is sustained by the last 
clause of the verse, " NeitJier doth corruption 



INHABITANTS OF RENEWED EARTH. 107 

inherit incorrupt ion." As the kingdom of God 
is incorruptible and undefined : so nothing 
corruptible, or defiled, can ever enter and 
enjoy it. Some way must be found to set 
aside this plain, positive statement of the 
apostle, or a mixed company of mortals and 
immortals will never be found in the millen- 
nial kingdom. One fact is worth a thousand 
theories; one plain text of Scripture is worth 
more than all the guesswork of commen- 
tators, or learned doctors of the law. 

Passing now to answer affirmatively, who 
shall be the inheritors of that sun-bright clime, 
we come to Matt. xix:28, " And Jesus said 
unto them, Verily I say unto you, That ye 
w r hich have followed me, in the regeneration 
when the Son of Man shall sit in the throne 
of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve 
thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel/' 
Peter is named, and from the number of 
thrones promised we may suppose all the 
faithful apostles were included. This is con- 
firmed by Luke xii:32 : " Fear not, little flock ; 
for it is your Father's good pleasure to give 
you the kingdom." From this let us learn 
the lesson that Christ would teach us; that 
it will pay when the Lord calls, to leave father, 
fish and fish nets, boats and all ; and even the 
receipt of custom, to follow him. And the 



108 THE MILLENNIUM, 

Lord does not leave us to infer even this, for 
he tells us plainly (v. 29), " Every one that 
hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, 
or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or 
lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an 
hundred fold, and shall inherit everlasting 
life." The disciples, therefore, having com- 
plied with the conditions, are specifically 
named as leading the list for the Millennial 
kingdom. 

We turn now to Heb. xi:i2-i6 : "There- 
fore sprang there even of one, and him as 
good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky 
in multitude, and as the sand which is by the 
sea shore innumerable. These all died in 
faith, not having received the promises, but 
having seen them afar off, and were persuaded 
of them, and embraced them, and confessed 
that they were strangers and pilgrims on the 
earth. For they that say such things declare 
plainly that they seek a country. And truly, 
if they had been mindful of that country from 
whence they came out, they might have had 
opportunity to have returned. But now they 
desire a better country, that is, a heavenly : 
wherefore God is not ashamed to be called 
their God : for he hath prepared for them a 
city." 

It certainly needs no argument to prove 



INHABITANTS OF RENEWED EARTH. 109 

that the " heavenly (like) country " which 
these waited for, is the new heavens and new 
earth in which the righteous shall dwell. 
And if this embraces all the children of faith, 
who have sprung- from Abraham, as the most 
faithless generation had seven thousand faithful 
ones (I Kings xix:i8), certainly the more than 
eighty generations since that time must furnish 
a number that would justify the apostle in 
saying "an innumerable company" or, "as 
the stars of the sky in multitude." In har- 
mony with this is Rev. viirg-iz : 

" After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multi 
tude, which no man could number, of all 
nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, 
stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, 
clothed with white robes, and palnas in their 
hands; and cried with a loud voice, saying, 
Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the 
throne, and unto the Lamb. And all the 
angels stood round about the throne, and 
about the elders and the four beasts, and fell 
before the throne on their faces, and worshiped 
God, saying, Amen! Blessing, and glory, and 
wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honor, and 
power, and might, be unto our God forever 
and ever. Amen. And one of the elders 
answered, saying unto me, What are these 
which are arrayed in white robes? and 
whence came they? And I said unto him, 
Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These 
are they which came out of great tribulation, 



110 THE MILLENNIUM. 

and have washed their robes, and made them 
white in the blood o( the Lamb. Therefore 
are they before the throne of God, and serve 
him day and night in his temple: and he that 
sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. 
They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any 
more ; neither shall the sun light on them, nor 
any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst 
of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead 
them unto living fountains of waters: and 
God shall wipe away all tears from their 
eyes." 

Here we have a countless multitude — not 
from Israel only, but — from V all nations, and 
kindreds, and people, and tongues ;" and as 
the prophet hears their shouts of " salvation, " 
listens to their praises of Him who sitteth 
upon the throne, and beholds their robes of 
dazzling whiteness, is it any wonder he should 
inquire, u Who are these which are arrayed 
in white robes, and whence came they?" 
And as the revealing elder took in at a glance 
the rugged pathway of the Church, and the 
fields of blood through which she must wade, 
under Pagan and Papal sway ; how appro- 
priate was the answer: " These are they which 
came out of great tribulation, and have 
washed their robes and made them white in 
the blood of the Lamb." As we look back- 
ward over the same pathway, and see the 
prophecy assuming the verities of historic 



INHABITANTS OF RENEWED EARTH. Ill 

fact, in " the flame, the spoil, the captivity 
many days/' how naturally our wonder and 
astonishment break out in the language of 
the poet : 

" These glorious minds, how bright they shine ! 

Whence all their bright array ? 
How came they to the happy seats 

Of everlasting day ? 
From torturing pains to endless joys 

On fiery wheels they rode; 
And strangely washed their garments white 

In Jesus' dying blood." 

We are now well on our way in search of 
the inheritors of the restored Paradise, the 
grand Millennial kingdom ; having already 
found a company of his ancient ones " like 
the stars in the sky," or " like the sand upon 
the sea-shore," also another, representing 
every family, kindred and tongue — an array 
so grand and imposing, that the mathematical 
acumen of the apostle is at fault in the enum- 
eration ; and yet a mightier multitude awaits ! 
Look at Matt. xix:izi: " Jesus said, suffer lit- 
tle children, and forbid them not, to come unto 
me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven." 

The last clause clearly indicates the char- 
acter of those who shall inhabit this home of 
the holy ; compare it with Matt. xviii:3, 4 ; 
see also Mark x 113-16. "Of such is the king- 
dom of heaven," or, " of God." As a little 



112 THE MILLENNIUM, 

child believes and trusts a parent who has 
never deceived him ; so Christ teaches us we 
must believe God and trust him if we would 
inherit His kingdom. Again, the passage 
teaches us that " OF SUCH is the kingdom of 
heaven" that is, the whole body politic is com- 
posed, or made up of such. Not that the 
kingdom is organized specially for them, but 
mainly of them. 

The chief lesson seems to be, that the chil- 
dren, before coming to years of accounta- 
bility, are his without an if. And this is 
further confirmed, by Ps. cxxvii:3. "Lo, chil- 
dren are an heritage of the Lord: and the 
fruit of the womb is his reward." This being 
correct, we have found the company who 
shall replenish the fair heritage of God. 

It is commonly estimated that one-half the 
human race die in childhood, or before becom- 
ing amenable to law. If these all belong to 
Christ (as the Scriptures I have noted seem 
to teach), then the peopling of the Millennial 
kingdom is explained, without supposing gen- 
eration by natural birth to continue as in pro- 
bationary time. The present population of 
the world is set down by the best authorities 
at about fourteen hundred million. One half 
would be 700 million ; let us call it 500 mill- 
ion ; and reckon 200 million of saved children 



INHABITANTS OF RENEWED EARTH, 113 

for each and every generation during the six 
thousand years. Allowing 40 years to a gen- 
eration, we would have 150 generations dur- 
ing the ante-Millennial period. This would 
give us 30,000 million for that glorious king- 
dom from this source alone. And if these all 
unite in such a song of praise as did the chil- 
dren in the temple (Matt xxiicj, 10), surely the 
new earth shall be vocal with their songs, 
from the north to the south, from the rising 
to the setting sun. 

We need seek no farther. The number 
saved from the ranks of infancy added to 
those " like the stars of the sky/'or " the sand 
upon the seashore" of Heb. xi:i2,and also the 
countless throng of Rev. viirg, will people the 
continents and islands of the New Earth, and 
require that some of the seas should " be no 
more," that the bosom of old Mother Earth 
may be bared to make room for these return- 
ing sons and daughters of the Most High. 
Rachel will then " be comforted," for her chil- 
dren will have returned " from the land of the 
enemy," (compare Jer. xxxi:i5, 16, with Matt, 
ii:i6-i8, and I Cor. xv:26). Then our little 
ones, torn from our embrace by death's 
relentless hand, shall return to gladden our 
hearts and bloom in the Paradise of God for- 
ever. What parent's heart but kindles with 
8 



114 THE MILLENNIUM. 

holier emotions and throbs with a more exqui- 
site joy, as he thinks of these buds of prom- 
ise, — so rudely broken from their parental 
bough — being reunited, and blossoming in 
eternal beauty and unending joy? 

Oh, day of days ! O, time of joy ! 

Fly o'er the appointed way, 
And bring the glorious Easter morn, 

The pilgrim's festal day. 
For glad hosannas then shall rise 

From ail the white-robed throng; 
From crystal seas to azure skies, 

The Hallelujah song! 



THE MILLENNIAL NATIONS. 115 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE MILLENNIAL NATIONS. 

That the division of the population of the 
New Earth into separate nations will be rec- 
ognized, is made plain by a multitude of pass- 
ages. "The nations shall walk amidst the 
light thereof ; and the kings of the earth do 
bring their glory into it" (Rev. xxi:24, Rev. 
Ver). That this does not mean the several 
tribes of Israel spoken of as nations, walking 
in the light of their own glorified city, is 
plain from Ezek. xxxvii:22. " And I will 
make them one nation in the land upon the 
mountains of Israel ; and one king shall be 
king to them all : and they shall be no more 
two nations, neither shall they be divided into 
two kingdoms any more at all." The last 
clause of Rev. xxi:24 makes it very plain that 
various nations, under their appropriate 
rulers, are intended ; for " the kings of the 
earth do bring their glory into it." Verse 
26 confirms the same, repeating the thought 
in another form, "And they shall bring the 
glory, and the honor of the nations into it.' 5 



116 THE MILLENNIUM, 

If Israel then is to be reunited with Judah, 
and recognized as one nation in their own 
land, as distinguished from other nations and 
lands around them, why not other nations and 
peoples be thus separate and distinct? Is not 
this thought confirmed by Isa, xix:23~25? *Tn 
that day shall there be a highway out of 
Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall 
come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into As- 
syria, and the Egyptians shall serve with the 
Assyrians. In that day shall Israel be the 
third with Egypt and with Assyria, even a 
blessing in the midst of the land : whom the 
Lord of hosts shall bless, raying, Blessed be 
Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of 
my hands, and Israel mine inheritance." If 
this refers to Millennial times, then we have 
Egypt and Assyria, together with Israel, 
named as distinct nations, and serving in a 
covenant of peace with each other, and with 
the Lord. 

Jehovah, through Isaiah, says (chap. lx:3), 
" And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, 
and kings to the brightness of thy rising/' 
Then, after naming Midian and Ephah, and 
Sheba, and various other of the ancient nations 
he adds, (vs. 9-12) " Surely the isles shall wait 
for me, and the ships of Tarshish first, to 
bring thy sons from far, their silver and their 



THE MILLENNIAL NATIONS. 117 

gold with them, unto the name of the Lord 
thy God, and to the Holy One of Israel, be- 
cause he hath glorified thee. And the sons of 
strangers shall build up thy walls, and their 
kings shall minister unto thee: for in my 
wrath I smote thee, but in my favor have I 
had mercy on thee. Therefore thy gates 
shall be open continually ; they shall not 
be shut day nor night ; that men may bring 
unto thee the forces of the Gentiles, and that 
their kings may be brought. For the nation 
and kingdom that will not serve thee shall 
perish ; yea, those nations shall be utterly 
wasted." Verses u and 12 clearly convey 
the idea that the nations who do not bow to 
the Lord and receive his truth, willingly and 
gladly acknowledging him as supreme, shall 
never reach that holv estate, but cease to 
exist as nations, and be known no more. 

The same thought is expressed concerning 
the various nations in Messiah's times, in Isa. 
lxi: 1 1 , "For as the earth bringeth forth her 
bud, and as the garden causeth the things 
that are sown in it to spring forth ; so the 
Lord God will cause righteousness and praise 
to spring forth before all the nations." The 
idea conveyed is that the Lord will cause his 
righteousness to be made known before all 
peoples, to prepare them for the reign of the 



118 THE MILLENNIUM. 

Righteous King ; and in token of their sub- 
mission they will heed his command: "Kiss 
the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from 
the way, when his wrath is kindled but a 
little." " 

But Isaiah, through all his prophecy, keeps 
this one great thought in view, the future glo- 
rification of Judah and Israel, as one nation in 
their own land, with "great David's greater 
Son" reigning "in Mount Zion, and in Jeru- 
salem, and before his ancients gloriously,'' as 
the great central Luminary of the New Cre- 
ation ; while other principalities and king- 
doms, in their several spheres, add to his 
comparative glory, like planets around their 
central sun, or satellites around their res- 
pective planets in the starry firmament above. 

Turn we next to* the seventy-second Psalm 
and listen to the joyous strain : 

" They shall fear thee as long as the sun and 
moon endure, throughout all generations. 
He shall come down like rain upon the mown 
grass: as showers that water the earth. In 
his days shall the righteous flourish ; and 
abundance of peace so long as the moon en- 
dureth. He shall have dominion also from 
sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends 
of the earth. They that dwell in the wilder- 
ness shall bow before him; and his enemies 
shall lick the dust. The kings of Tarshish 
and of the isles shall bring presents : the kings 



THE MILLENNIAL NATIONS. 11« 

of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts. Yea, all 
kings shall fall down before him : all nations 
shall serve him. * * * And he shall live, 
and to him shall be given of the gold ot 
Sheba : prayer also shall be made for him con- 
tinually ; and daily shall he be praised. * * 
* His name shall endure for ever: his name 
shall be continued as long as the sun : and men 
shall be blessed in him : all nations shall call 
him blessed." 

Here Solomon is undoubtedly referred to 
in type ; but it is only as a type ; the language 
is too far reaching, too comprehensive to be 
confined to him. The dominion is to be as 
" long as the sun and moon endure;" the 
righteous are to flourish and peace be assured 
during all that glorious reign ; and "he shall 
live,'' "his name (or life) shall endure forever," 
and "all nations shall call Him blessed;" — 
this can apply nowhere but to the days of 
Messiah, when David's prayer (v. 19) shall be 
answered, and " the whole earth be filled with 
his glory." 

In passing, we notice for a moment Ps. 
lxxxvii:4-6, " I will make mention of Rahab 
and Babylon to them that know me: behold 
Philistia and Tyre, with Ethiopia ; this man 
was born there. And of Zion it shall be said, 
This and that man was born in her: and the 
highest himself shall establish her. The Lord 
shall count, when he writeth up the people, that 



120 THE MILLENNIUM. 

this man was born there." The thought seems 
clearly to be, that when the Lord makes the 
record of his people, he will not only write 
their number and their names, but also their 
nationalities, or where they were born. The 
necessity for this may not seem apparent at a 
glance: but God's arrangements for Israel ap- 
pear to have been according to his own ideas 
of a perfect kingdom ; as will be seen by his 
own words, when speaking of their restora- 
tion in Messiah's times : " I will restore thy 
judges as at the first, and thy counsellors as 
at the beginning" (Lsa. 1:26). Their tabernacle, 
temple, and ritual service, were according to 
God's own pattern : " Look that thou make 
them after their pattern, which was shewed 
thee in the mount" (Exod. xxv^o. Compare 
Heb. viii:5). In Israel provision was made to 
keep the tribes distinct, so that daughters 
who had an inheritance were not permitted 
to marry out of their own tribe (Num. xxxvi: 
6-8). To this end separate genealogies of all 
the families and tribes were necessary. And 
may not the necessity be even greater for 
writing up the record of God's own sons and 
daughters for the kingdom of our Messiah ? 
Continuing our search for the saved nations, 
we come to Dan. vii:27: " And the kingdom 
and dominion, and the greatness of the king- 



THE MILLENNIAL NATIONS. 121 

dom under the whole heaven, shall be given 
to the people of the saints of the Most High, 
whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, 
and all dominions shall serve and obey him." 
This is the kingdom immediately succeeding 
Peter's burning day. But while this kingdom 
of the saints, or of the Most High, is repre- 
sented as occupying the whole habitable globe, 
" under the whole heaven," a numerous com- 
pany of subordinate kings, or rulers, are 
recognized in the following words: "And 
all dominions (or rulers) shall serve and obey 
Him." 

These passages are certainly sufficient to es- 
tablish the thought with which we started, viz., 
a retinue of kingdoms in the millennial earth, 
with Christ the Supreme Ruler over them 
all. And this will explain Rev. xix:i6, where 
Christ is seen leading the armies of heaven, 
to conquest and final victory : " And he hath 
on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, 
King of kings, and Lord of Lords." 

We now proceed to notice a difficulty which 
may lie in the way of some, namely, " If all 
are kings and priests, where are the subjects?" 
This question evidently supposes that the 
class or classes named in Rev. i:6, and v.j 
embrace all the redeemed. This is clearly a 
mistake. The first applies to John and per. 



122 THE MfLT.ENXIUM. 

haps to the churches to which he wrote ; but 
if so, he addresses them as actively engaged 
in the warfare of faith, and mentions the dig- 
nity to which they shall be exalted when God 
(or Christ), conjointly with the saints, shall 
have the glory and dominion forever and 
ever. He addresses them, not as those re- 
deemed without any knowledge or agency of 
their own, but as those actively engaged with 
Christ in washing their robes in the fountain 
which he himself had opened. (Compare 
Rev. vii:9-i4 and xxii:i4, Rev. Ver.) The 
same remarks will apply to those in chapter 
v:io. 

It is obvious from these and other consid- 
erations that might be adduced, that the kings 
and priests — even in the coming kingdom — 
will be those specially qualified and trained 
for the station they are to. occupy. This is 
confirmed by the parable of the talents (Matt. 
xx v: 14-30), where the rule or authority is 
graded according to ability. See also Luke 
xix:i2-28. 

Then again, the opinion so largely obtain- 
ing, that all the saved of the Christian church 
are to be kings and priests unto God, is — if I 
read my Bible aright — certainly erroneous. 
Look at I Cor. iii : 1 1 - 1 5 , u For other foun- 
dation can no man lay than that is laid, which 



THE MILLENNIAL NATIONS. 123 

is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon 
this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, 
wood, hay, stubble ; every man's work shall 
be made manifest: for the day shall declare 
it, because it shall be revealed by fire ; and 
the fire shall try every man's work of what 
sort it is. If any man's work abide which he 
hath built thereupon, he shall receive a re- 
ward. If any man's work shall be burned, he 
shall suffer loss : but he himself shall be saved ; 
yet so as by fire." 

The gold, silver, and precious stones, rep- 
resent God's own elect, called and chosen 
(Lam. iv:2; Mal.'iii:ijr), builded on the sure 
foundation, by the faithful servant; and it 
brings the "Well done" with a kingly re- 
ward. On the other hand, the wood, hay, 
stubble, represent the wayside, stony, and 
thorny-ground hearers of the gospel ; which 
well-meaning, but misguided servants, build 
among the gold, silver, and precious stones ; 
but the fiery clay will test the work, burn- 
ing up many a structure, builded of those 
fair but fragile materials. The well-meaning, 
but superficial workman will suffer loss ; his 
works being burned. This loss is not the loss 
of his soul, for while his works perish, "he 
himself shall be saved." And if among the 
appointed builders some are so completely 



124 THE MILLENNIUM. 

stripped of all their works, that they them- 
selves are only " saved as by fire,'' the reward 
utterly lost, what multitudes there must be 
among the churches, saved — if saved at all — 
crownless, or at least with starless crowns in 
the kingdom of God ! For the glory of the 
crown of" the blessed Christ, in the eternal 
kingdom, will be the multitude robed in 
white, whom he will present before the 
Father's throne, with exceeding joy, saying, 
" Behold me, and the children which thou 
hast given me." Does not the apostle Paul 
make those converts compose his " crown of 
rejoicing," who shall stand fast in the presence 
of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming? 
I Thess.ii:i9« In that sense, what multitudes 
there are in the professing Christian church, 
who will only be fitted for subjects, never 
attaining to the dignity of kings in the Mil- 
lennial reign ! 

But the difficulty named entirely vanishes 
in the light of the Revised Version. There 
Rev. i:6 reads thus : " And he made us to be 
a kingdom, to be priests unto his God and 
Father ;" and Rev. v:io is like it: " And 
madest them to be unto our God, a kingdom 
and priests. " According" to this reading, these 
texts simply affirm that the kingdom of God 
shall be made up of these blood-bought, blood** 



THE MILLENNIAL NATIONS. 125 

washed ones; all to be pure and holy, leaving 
other Scriptures to determine who shall be 
kings, counsellors, judges and rulers. The 
way being cleared of difficulties, raised by 
the former reading of these passages, it be- 
comes easy to determine that only a small 
number comparatively, will occupy the places 
of rule or authority. According to Dan. xii: 
3, "the wise" — "they that turn many to 
righteousness "—are those who shall be ex- 
alted, or " shine as the stars forever and ever." 
In the parable of the talents (Matt, xxv: 14-30), 
and also of the pounds (Luke xix: 12-24), those 
were appointed to posts of honor, who had 
proved themselves faithful to their trusts; 
knowing how, and being willing to use their 
lord's money to his profit and advantage. 
Also, Paul's "wise master-builder" (I Cor. 
iii) were those who knew how to gather the 
most splendid, and costly, as well as the most 
durable materials, to build into the temple of 
God ; rejecting the more fragile and perish- 
able substances, as unsuited to so divine a 
habitation. 

This view will somewhat relieve the diffi- 
culty under which those labor who — suppos- 
ing the whole Gentile Church to be cotem- 
porary kings with Christ — are under the 
necessity of again supposing, that generation 



126 THE MILLENNIUM. 

will continue through eternal ages, that they 
may have subjects to reign over. But as 
the limit must sometime be reached during 
the cycles of those oncoming ages, when the 
restored earth shall be filled to overflowing, 
it is again suggested — " God can translate his 
saints to other scenes." Brethren, let us stop 
here. The passages we are considering say, 
" We shall reign on the earth." Let us 
not suppose obstacles in the way, that would 
compel God to falsify his word. " It is easier 
for heaven and earth to pass away than for 
one word of God to fail." 

This world is to be our home : God says it, 
and that must settle the question. This will 
be " the better country ;" and though we 
may be called to visit other spheres, when 
resting from our journeys this will be our 
tarrying place. Difficulties will vanish like 
the mirage as we approach the same. Christ's 
word should settle this question of successive 
generations without a limit : " The children 
of this world marry, and are given in mar- 
riage : but they which shall be accounted 
worthy to obtain that world, and the resur- 
rection from the dead, neither marry, nor are 
given in marriage : neither can they die any 
more : for they are equal unto the angels ; and 
are the children of God, being the children 



THE MILLENNIAL NATIONS. 127 

of the resurrection" (Luke xx:34-36). Mar- 
riage is God's appointed way to " replenish 
the earth ;" and when his limitation is reached, 
continuous generation must cease: and all 
the special pleading about " perpetual gen- 
erations," or "a thousand generations," will 
not be worth the breath it takes to make them, 
beyond the time so appointed. The Levit- 
ical priesthood was to be a " perpetual priest- 
hood," but it ended when a priest arose of 
Judah's line. So the " thousand generations " 
is doubtless a little hyperbolical, intended to 
emphasize the long time covered by the cov- 
enant with Israel. But that covenant ends 
when the "new covenant" with Israel and 
Judah goes into effect : and whatever time is 
intended to be covered by the " thousand gen- 
erations " will certainly end at the same time. 
These thoughts will show, that the number 
to be exalted to kingly honors will not be so 
disproportioned to the number who shall 
occupy the subject's place as has been some- 
times imagined. And when we consider the 
saved children, who certainly will not be 
fitted for kings, at the lowest estimate we can 
make, there will be enough without adding 
the multitudes who have failed in the race 
for regal honors to make a hundred kingdoms 
equally populous with China. Adding to 



128 THE MILLENNIUM. 

these the vast number saved with works 
burned ; and we shall have enough of the 
lesser nations to complete the population of 
the fair heritage of God without the necessity 
of a mixed race, of mortals and immortals, 
who have " never heard his fame, nor seen 
his glory/' to complete the same by natural 
generation, through countless ages. Nay ; 
God has found the better way : saving " the 
fruit of the womb as his (Christ's) reward," — 
as pure and spotless as though sin had never 
entered the world, — and re-creating by a new 
birth, a race of immortals, fitted to supply 
kings, judges, and counsellors for the eternal 
kingdom. 

Having then, ascertained the heaven-ap- 
pointed inhabitants of the realms of the 
blessed, and seen something of their arrange- 
ment into nations, we can appreciate the 
words of Cowper as he saw by faith the 
ransomed multitude assembling from time 
to time, in the holy. city, to worship before 
the King, the Lord of hosts: 

" Behold the measure of the promise filled ! 

See Salem built, the labor of a God ! 

Bright as a sun the sacred city shines : 

All kingdoms and all princes of the earth 

Flqck to that light ; the glory of all lands 

Flo.ws into her ; unbounded is he*- joy, 

And endless her increase. Thy rams are there, 



THE MILLENNIAL NATIONS. 120 

Nebaioth, and the ilocks of Keclar there : 
The looms of Ormus, and the mines of Ind, 
And Saba's spicy groves, pay tribute there. 
Praise is in all her gates ; upon her walls, 
And in her streets, and spacious courts. 
Is heard salvation. Eastern Java there 
Kneels with the native of the farthest west ; 
And Ethiopia spreads abroad the hand, 
And worships. Her report has travel'd forth 
Into all lands. From ev'ry clime they come 
To see thy beauty and to share thy joy, 
O Sion ! an assembly such as earth 
Saw never, such as heav'n stoops down to see " 



130 THE MILLENNIUM. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

GOG AND MAGOG — WHO ARE THEY? 

" And I saw an angel come down from 
heaven, having the key of the bottomless 
pit and a great chain in his hand. And he 
laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, 
which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him 
a thousand years. * * * And when the 
thousand years are expired, Satan shall be 
loosed out of his prison, and shall go out to 
deceive the nations which are in the four 
quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to 
gather them together to battle ; the number 
of whom is as the sand of the sea.'' {Rev. xx: 
1,2,7,8.) 

At the commencement of the thousand 
years Satan is taken and bound, — apparently 
at the same time with the beast and false 
prophet, who are consigned to the lake of fire, 
their final doom. Satan, however, is cast into 
the abyss — under restraint for a long, yet a 
limited period ; then to be loosed a little sea- 
son, for reasons that will be apparent as we 
proceed. 

At his loosing he ' k goes out to deceive the 
nations which are in the four quarters of the 



GOG AND MAGOG—WHO ARE THETf 131 

earth, Gog and Magog." At once the ques- 
tion arises, who are they ? The answers have 
been almost as various as those who have sug- 
gested them. Whitbv, Priest, and a host of 
others, believers in a temporal Millennium, 
suppose them to be children born during the 
thousand years; and not being acquainted with 
the devices of Satan, they are seduced by 
him into apostasy at his loosing, and joining 
in rebellion, are destroyed by the avenging 
judgments of God. This is inadmissible, abso- 
lutely wrong : for, starting on a false hypoth- 
esis, it necessarily reaches a wrong conclu- 
sion. Denying the personal presence of 
Christ during the Millennium, it deranges the 
whole order and plan of God : placing the 
burning day (II Pet. iiino), the judgment of 
the nations (Matt.xx v:3 1), the Restitution (Acts 
iii:20-2i; Matt. xix:28) all at the close of the 
thousand years, whereas the Scriptures above 
referred to, place them all at the coming of 
Christ and commencement of that golden age. 
This theory denies the literality of " the first 
resurrection," at the beginning of the thou- 
sand years (Rev. xx:4~6), although it is ex- 
pressed by the same words used in other 
Scriptures to denote a literal rising up of 
dead persons from their graves. The literal 
sense of the passage is so clearly demanded, 



132 THE MILLENNIUM. * 

by its construction, and by its connection, 
that Prof. Moses Stuart says : " The exigen- 
cies of the passage are apparently such as 
absolutely to demand this (the sense of a 
bodily resurrection); at least a great portion 
oi recent commentators have judged them to 
be such. Indeed, if this be not a position in 
the interpretation of Scripture which is fully 
and fairly made out by philology, I should 
confess myself at a loss to designate one 
which is, from among the many difficult pass- 
ages of Scripture ' : Com. on the Apoc, Vol. 

II, p. 476. 

Prof. Bush thinks he finds the Gog and 
Magog armies among the Scythians, Tartars, 
and Turks, sweeping down upon Eastern 
Christendom, A. D. 1000 to A. D. 1452, when 
Constantinople fell, blotting out the light of 
Christianity from the firmament of the Ori- 
ental world. He traces a fancied resemblance 
to these Apocalyptic names among the lead- 
ers and tribes, who swarmed from their na- 
tive fastnesses in Central and Northern Asia, 
during the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries 
inclusive. In order to this, he places the Mil- 
lennium between the third and thirteenth cen- 
turies A. D. But in doing it he deranges the 
analogy of creation week, which was consid- 
ered so strong as to command the assent of 



GOG AND MAGOG — WHO ARE THETf 133 

almost the whole Church for the first three 
centuries ; and also of a multitude of the most 
deeply pious ones in all the ages since. He 
loses his figurative Satan two hundred years 
before his own dates for the closing of the Mil- 
lennial period. {Treatise on the Mil., p> 189); 
whereas the Scriptures say that the devil will 
be loosed when they " are expired;" {Com. 
Ver.), "finished" {Rev. Ver.), i. e., completed. 
His arrangement also necessitates a denial of 
the literality of "the first resurrection, ' ; 
thereby violating the plainest laws of criti- 
cism and philology. He makes the reign of 
the saints to synchronize with their sufferings 
in the dungeon, on the scaffold, and in the 
flames ( p. 138). Having denied the liter- 
ality of "the first resurrection," he is too 
good a scholar to contradict himself by mak- 
ing the second literal: so he makes the death 
mystical, and then denies the resurrection of 
the subjects of such death altogether, (pp. 142 
-3): " No ray of the light of life beamed on 
the darkness of their Millennial night. They 
were in a state of moral dormancy and deli- 
quium, from which it is the scope of this pass- 
age to assure us that they should not be awak- 
ened so as to live during the lapse of that pro- 
tracted period. * '* * As to what hap- 
pened to them alter that period, nothing is 



134 THE MILLENNIUM. 

expressly said ; but in conformity to the usage 
just illustrated, the inference is that they 
never lived in the sense in which living is pred- 
icated of the 'souls' of the martyrs." 

Into such absurdities does error lead its 
votaries ! proving the truth of the poet's 
aphorism about order, only applying to 
prophecy what he applies to the natural 
world: 

11 From Nature's chain whatever link you strike, 
Tenth or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike." 

No, Prof. Bush, this will never do ! We shall 
not be able to find the Gog and Magog 
armies among the Turks; and for the best of 
all reasons, that we shall never be able to 
frame an argument that would satisfy even 
ourselves that the Millennial of the Apoca- 
lypse is in the past. 

D. N*. Lord says, {Ex. Apoc.,p. 523); " Gog 
and Magog are regarded by interpreters gen- 
erally as the nations of northern Asia, and 
are expressly represented by Ezekiel, chapter 
xxxix:2, as to come from the north. " He 
continues in harmony with this supposition : 
" This prophecy, then, foreshows that after the 
risen saints have reigned with Christ the 
three hundred and sixty thousand years, Satan 
and his legions are to be allowed again to 
return to the earth to tempt men \ that 



GOG A YD MAGOG—WHO ARE THETf 135 

seduced by them, remote nations are to revolt 
from the sway of the saints which Christ has 
established over them, and attempt to exalt 
themselves to supreme authority ; and that 
they are to be destroyed by the direct inter- 
position of the eternal Word.'' 

But as he proceeds he makes admissions 
which completely destroy the position he had 
taken. On page 529 he says : "The descent 
of the city is to take place at the commence- 
ment of the Millennium, manifestly from the 
representation that the marriage of the Lamb 
was come, and that his wife had prepared 
herself, immediately after the destruction of 
great Babylon, chapter xix:/, 8 ; from the 
exhibition of the risen and glorified saints as 
seated on thrones and reigning with Christ 
during the thousand years ; and from the rep- 
resentation of the beloved city as on earth at 
the revolt of Gog and Magog, after the close 
of the thousand years." 

Now if the city descends " at the com- 
mencement of the Millennium, " the Restitu- 
tion must precede it, or at least synchronize 
with its introduction. But the Restitution is 
certainly immediately preceded by the great 
burning day (II Pet. iii:i2, 13): ''Looking for 
and hasting unto the coming of the day of 
God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall 



136 THE MILLENNIUM. 

be dissolved, and the elements shall melt 
with fervent heat ? Nevertheless, we, accord- 
ing to his promise, look for new heavens and 
a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." 
That burning clay leaves only " righteous- 
ness," or righteous persons. And this har- 
monizes with Mr. Lord's own statement on 
page 528 : 

" Men universally 'are to be sanctified, to own 
and honor him as God, and to enjoy manifest- 
ations of his presence and favor. He is to 
wipe every tear from their eyes. They are 
no more to be subject to death, nor know any- 
thing of sorrow, mourning, or toil. All the 
forms of penal evil, brought on the race by the 
fall, are to cease, and all things become new. 
* * * The unholy of all classes are to be 
excluded from it, and cons'gned to the abyss 
of misery. '• 

But if all are holy during that long period, 
then God has provided for an apostasy OF 
SAINTS at its close — according to this theory 
— as much worse than that in Paradise as the 
armies of Gog and Magog are more numer- 
ous than Eden's first pair! But our author 
evidently saw the incongruity of Mipposing 
that saints who had passed through their pro- 
bation, the grand assize, and a thousand (or, as 
he makes it elsewhere, three hundred and 
sixty thousand) years of the immortal state, 
should again be exposed to the wiles of Satan, 



GOG AND MAGOG — WHO ARE THETf 137 

engage in rebellion against God, and be 
cast down to hell for their madness and folly ; 
so he supposes some of " the remote nations 
of Northern Asia" will in some way (though 
he does not tell us how) be saved from the 
judgments, and the fiery baptism that precedes 
the Millennium, and enter upon that blessed 
state, as mortal, or unglorified beings. But 
how are they to pass over the ocean of fire 
that shall engulf a sin-cursed world? We 
know how the glorified ones pass it : " For 
the Lord himself shall descend from heaven 
with a shout, and with the voice of the arch- 
angel, and with the trump of God: and the 
dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which 
are alive and remain shall be caught up to- 
gether with them in the clouds, to meet the 
Lord in the air." (I Thess. iv:i6, 17.) As an 
ark was needful to carry Noah and his family 
over the watery flood; so the " Jerusalem 
which is above" (Gal. ivnz6), " the heavenly 
Jerusalem" (Heb. xir.22), will be needed to 
carry the saints over the fiery ocean. Accord- 
ingly we find them " caught up," as in the 
above passage; or raptured into heaven, as in 
Rev. xix:i, 9, with Christ at the Marriage 
Supper. And our author describes all the 
denizens of that blissful abode as saints par 
excellence, and thus fitted for the aerial jour- 



138 THE MILLENNIUM. 

ney, with Paul's raptured ones over the judg- 
ment fires, to the New Jerusalem: from 
thence descending to their heaven appointed 
place, in the Paradise of God. Hear him: 

" All nations, and all individuals are to be 
sanctified and freed from exhausting toil, 
suffering, sorrow and death ; the earth con- 
verted into a paradise of righteousness, bless- 
edness and life, infinite proofs thus given of 
its fitness to be the abode of a holy and happy 
race." — p. 541. 

How then, are these sanctified ones, — who 
alone are fitted to become the dupes of Satan, 
and thus be led to the ruin that overtakes the 
Gog and Magog armies, — to find their way 
into the Millennial kingdom ? He not only 
does not tell us, but he does tell us, that "all 
nations, and all individuals are to be sanctified" 
and thus being holy are fitted for that celestial 
glory, and consequently placed beyond the 
machinations of Satan, as their character is 
now fixed : " He that is holy let him be holy 
still " (Rev. xxii:n). This will never do. 
D. N. Lord certainly fails to solve the ques- 
tion of the post-millennial war, and we shall 
have to continue our search further. 

A late pre-millennial work frequently refers 
to this subject of a mixed millennium ; and to 
repeat and reply to all the author has said on 
the point, would necessitate a review of a 



GOG AND MAGOG — WHO ARE THEY? 139 

large share of his work. This I have neither 
time, space, nor inclination to do. In his 
matchless defence of the historic interpre- 
tation of the Apocalypse and other prophe- 
cies ; his merciless exposure of the pretensions 
and hypocrisy of the Romish hierarchy ; his 
complete refutation of the monstrous " gap 
theory " of the Futurists, we greatly rejoice. 
But that he should run into other errors of 
the same school, equally fatal to any true 
system of interpretation, is greatly to be de- 
plored. But as touching the mixed millen- 
nium, probation during the same, etc., let him 
speak for himself : 

" The second and more manifest glorious 
stage of this renewing work is yet to come; 
as it was with our Lord, so it is with his 
people, the moral and spiritual manifestation 
of the new man comes firsthand the physical 
glorification afterward. ' If the spirit of him 
that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in 
you, he that raised up Jesus from the dead 
shall also quicken- your mortal bodies by his 
spirit that dwelleth in you:' 'As we have 
borne the image of the earthy, we shall also 
bear the image of the heavenly/ When we 
see Christ, i we shall be like him, for we shall 
see him as he is.' But though i the first resur- 
rection ' will manifest, as nothing else has 



140 THE MILLENNIUM. 

ever done, the power, grace, and glory of 
Jesus Christ, it will not complete the work of 
renovation, for it leaves the nations of the 
earth still in a state of probation. This co- 
existence of man in the flesh on earth, with 
glorified humanity in the Church, is a stumb- 
ling block to many, and hinders their receiv- 
ing the doctrine of 'the first resurrection/ 
But why should it be thought a thing incred- 
ible with us? Does not this very state of 
things exist, even now? Is not Christ risen 
from the dead and become ' the first fruits of 
them that slept?' and yet are not his people 
on earth still in the flesh? and more, are not 
the bodies of the great majority of them slum- 
bering in the dust? Does not I Cor. xv 
clearly show that resurrection takes place in 
three distinct stages? * * * Coincident 
with the physical restoration of the Church 
of the first born ' is the spiritual resurrection 
or conversion of the natural Israel, just as 
coincident with the Lord's own resurrection 
was the spiritual regeneration of the Gentile 
Church ; and consequent on the conversion of 
Israel is the Millennial blessing of the wide 
world, according as it is written : ' In thee 
and in thy seed shall all the nations of the 
earth be blessed.' The receiving back of 
Israel to the favor of God is as ' life from the 



GOG AND MAGOG — WHO ARE THETf 141 

dead ' to the world : it is also marked by a 
beginning of renewal to the earth itself. As 
the entry of sin at the fall destroyed first the 
spiritual and then the physical nature of man, 
and then the earth, which was his habitation, 
so the redeeming work of God first re-creates 
man spiritually, then physically, ana then 
restores the earth, which is his dwelling- 
pi ace." 

With much of the foregoing statement we 
fully agree ; taking issue first with the expres- 
sion, 4k It leaves the nations of the earth still 
in a state of probation." This is pure assump- 
tion. To give some reasons For dissenting: 
First ; It destroys the analogy of God's cre- 
ative work, on which the theory of the Mil- 
lennium is largely founded. Creation-work 
was finished the sixth day, so it has been 
supposed the work of redemption would be 
finished in six thousand years. Adam and 
Eve were fitted for each other, and for the 
station they were to occupy, and brought 
together on the sixth day ; so the Church 
will be complete and be presented faultless to 
Christ as his Bride at the close of the six 
thousand years. God did not spend the 
seventh day in creating subjects for Adam to 
reign over, or servants and handmaidens to 
wait on Eve ; but 4k HE RESTED ON THE 



142 THE MILLENNIUM. 

SEVENTH DAY FROM ALL HIS WORK WHICH 

he had made." And the apostle doubtless 
refers to the Millennial age as a rest — a Sab- 
bath — remaining to the people of God (Heb. 
iv:9). The prophet clearly describes Christ 
as resting in his love at the same time (Zeph. 
iii:i7), and joying over them with singing. 
Thus far for analogy. 

Secondly ; His assumption disagrees with the 
Scriptures which describe the introduction 
of that glorious era. For, first, Rev. xviii 
describes the destruction of mystical Baby- 
lon ; chapter xixn-9 refers to the raptured 
saints in heaven, — i.e., in the air — with Christ 
at the marriage supper; and in verses 11-16, 
we have the glorious Second Advent of the 
King of Kings, leading the armies of heaven 
to the final conflict, commonly called Arma- 
geddon (Rev. xix: 17-21 and xx:i,2), in which 
u the kings of the earth and their armies " are 
slain, the beast and the false prophet taken 
and cast alive into the lake of fire, Satan 
bound and cast into the abyss where he is to 
remain for a thousand years, and " the rem- 
nant v — the rest, the remainder, all that were 
left — were slain with the sword of Him that 
sat upon the horse, "which sword proceeded 
out of his mouth." The sword proceeding 
from his mouth, shows that it symbolizes the 



GOG AND MAGOG — WHO ARE THETf 143 

judgments which follow his commands. And 
in Luke xix:27, which synchronizes with the 
passage under consideration, the King says: 
11 But those mine enemies, which would not 
that I should reign over them, bring hither 
and slay them before me." There can be but 
two classes, friends and enemies; and the 
"friends" being marshaled with the armies 
of the King, and the "enemies^ all slain, it 
leaves a clear field, in which to set up his 
kingdom: not a tare left in all the realm. I 
do not see how language could make it plainer. 
The floor is " thoroughly purged," the wheat 
gathered into the garner, and the chaff burned 
with unquenchable fire (Matt. iii:i2), at the 
commencement of the Millennium. 

But again, after admitting that 4 ' this co- 
existence of man in the fle.-h on earth, with 
glorified humanity in the Church, is a stum- 
bling block to many/' he asks: " Does not 
this very state of things exist, even now? Is 
not Christ risen from the dead, and become 
the first fruits of them that slept ? and yet are 
not his people on earth still in the flesh?" 
To the first of these questions I answer em- 
phatically, No! Those who rose from the 
dead "after His resurrection " (Matt. xxvii:52, 
53) ascended with him on high, when he 
ascended with "a multitude of captives" 



144 THE MILLENNIUM. 

(Eph. iv:8, margin), and are doubtless in the 
New Jerusalem, as "the church of the first 
born." But what has that to do with the 
mixing of mortals and immortals? The very 
fact of their being taken on high answers the 
question in the negative. To the second, yes! 
Christ is risen, and become the "first fruits" 
of the sleeping ones; and his people are on 
earth, in the flesh : but certainly that does not 
prove that mortals and immortals live together 
in such dissimilar conditions? Christ thought 
it expedient for him to be away during the 
training time of his Church (John xvi:7-i3); 
and the very objections that prevented his 
setting up his kingdom at his first advent, 
over a mixed race, will lie with equal weight 
against a mixed Millennial kingdom. True, 
his people are still in the flesh, and that is the 
very reason why the blessed Christ remains 
away; because they are not ready for the 
transfiguration into the glories of the incor- 
ruptible state. Christ will never reign over 
the two classes in any other sense than he 
reigns over them now ; except as on his judg- 
ment throne ; and that instead of uniting, will 
be for separation, once and forever. When 
he takes his kingdom the heirs, or citizens, will 
all be made immortal: for " flesh and blood 
cannot inherit the kingdom of God " (I Cor. 



GOG AND MAGOG — WHO ARE THEY? 145 

xv:5o). And the apostle does not leave a 
single chance of escape, but continues in the 
same verse : " Neither doth corruption inherit 
incor-ruption." The inheritance is said to be 
incorruptible (I Pet. i:/j.), and according to the 
statement just quoted the inhabitants must be 
incorruptible also. But if the inhabitants of 
that land are incorruptible, then Satan will not 
seduce them at his loosing He cannot do it 
from their very nature. Hence, it follows that 
the Gog and Magog army is not to be made up 
of apostate saints, nor from weaklings among 
the nations, who have been slipped into the 
kingdom as if by enchantment, without ever 
knowing how. 

Whence comes that countless throng, 
"as the sands of the sea," which Satan finds 
in the " four quarters of the earth," that is, 
all over the earth — when he is loosed, and 
goes out to deceive them, and lead them to 
brittle against the camp of the saints? Per- 
haps no question in an exposition of the Apoc- 
alypse has caused greater perplexity, or given 
rise to more varied interpretations; and yet 
the difficulties seem mainly to arise from 
attempts " to make the worse appear the bet- 
ter reason. v A little common sense will fre- 
quently solve difficulties, at which philoso- 
phers would stumble. 
10 



146 THE MILLENNIUM. 

Dr. John Gill, the distinguished Baptist 
commentator of the last century, says of the 
" Gog and Magog army, " " that shall com- 
pass the camp of the saints when the thousand 
years are finished :" — "They are ' the rest of 
the dead/ the wicked, 4 who live not again till 
the thousand years are ended ;' 'even all the 
wicked that have been from the beginning of 
the world." Body of Divinity, Vol. II, p. 1048. 

The late eloquent Dr. John dimming, of 
the National Church of Scotland, London, 
says : — " It strikes me that I have found the ex- 
planation of a universally perplexing point — 
a confessed difficulty : if there is to be a Mil- 
lennium of a thousand years with Christ 
and his own people, in the midst of the earth, 
how is it that when Satan shall be loosed, 
that there shall be found a people in the four 
corners of the earth called Gog and Magog, 
who shall be gathered together in battle, and 
war against the saints of God in the resurrec- 
tion body ? Now, I admit there is great diffi- 
culty about this; but observe, the difficulty that 
occurs to the mind and theory ol a pre-mil- 
lennialist is not greater than the difficulty 
that occurs to the theory and exposition of a 
post-millennialist. I will give what I think 
the probable solution : * * * Do you 
perceive that it is here stated that when the 



GOG AND MAGOG — WHO ARE THETf 147 

dead in Christ have arisen and ascended to 
the Lord, the rest of the dead live not till the 
thousand years were finished ? I suppose, 
then, that ' the rest of the dead,' that is, the 
unconverted, are raised from their graves 
just at the moment that the thousand years 
are completely closed, and that * the rest of 
the dead,' raised in their bodies, are those ene- 
mies who make war with the saints in their 
resurrection bodies ; the unjust shall arise as 
well as the just; the one shall have their 
bodies restored as well as the other; the im- 
primatur of eternity stamped upon the one, 
the imprimatur of eternity stamped upon the 
other — the one an eternal capacity of woe, 
the other of bliss. I suppose — and I believe 
it is the true solution of the difficult)' — that 
the enemies that come from the four corners 
of the earth, are just 'the rest of the dead,' 
raised at the close of the Millennium, and then 
and there, with all their vices unextirpated, 
their natures unregenerated, their hearts in the 
gall of bitterness, they shall be headed by the 
archangel's energy, and the arch-fiend's hate, 
and shall make one last, dying, and desperate 
attack upon the saints of God that dwell in 
the New Jerusalem, and who there magnify 
and worship the Lamb." Apocalyptic Sketches, 
First Series, pp. 457, 8. 



148 THE MILLENNIUM. 

We may not indorse all the thoughts 
brought out by this last witness — it will not 
be expected, — but the main thought as to 
"who Gog and Magog are,' 5 I believe to be 
essentially correct: for (i), Satan was deceiv- 
ing them in the war which resulted in his 
overthrow, capture and incarceration in the 
abyss. The other leaders, the beast and false 
prophet, were taken alive and cast into the 
lake of fire ; the rest, or remnant, were slain 
with the sword, i. e., exterminated. This is 
the way wars usually close. The leaders are 
killed or made prisoners ; and the army, 
breaking up into guerrilla bands, ravage the 
territory till they are also captured or slain. 
But in (he war in question, no quarter was 
given (Rev. xix:2i) : " The remnant were slain 
with the sword of him that sat upon the 
horse." This agrees with the words of the 
prophet Jeremiah (chap. xxv:'30-33"), " There- 
fore prophesy thou against them all these 
words, and say unto them, The Lord shall 
roar from on high, and utter his voice from 
his holy habitation ; he shall mightily roar 
upon his habitation ; he shall give a shout, as 
they tread the grapes, against all inhabitants 
of the earth. A noise shall come even to the 
ends of the earth ; for the Lord hath a con- 
troversy with the nations, he will plead with 



GOG AND MAGOG — WHO ARE THET? 149 

all flesh ; he will give them that are wicked to 
the sword, saith the Lord. Thus saith the 
Lord of hosts, Behold, evil shall go forth from 
nation to nation, and a great whirlwind shall 
be raised up from the coasts of the earth. 
And the slain of the Lord shall be at that day 
from one end of the earth even unto the other end 
of the eetrtli : they shall not be lamented, 
neither gathered, nor buried ; they shall be 
dung upon the ground." At this point, the 
purifying fires finish the work of the destruc- 
tion and cleansing, according to Maiachi (iv:i). 
But (2), they appear in the right place and 
at the right time: the place, " the four quar- 
ters of the earth," or all over the earth ; the 
time, the end of the thousand years, simulta- 
neously with the loosing of Satan ; the very 
time when the wicked were to be raised, 
which adds strong probability to the suppo- 
sition that they are the class we are seeking. 
Then Satan goes out to deceive them, and to 
gather them together to battle : " And they 
went up on the breadth of the earth, and 
compassed the camp of the saints about, and 
the beloved city : and fire came down from 
God out of heaven, and devoured them." 
There are no exceptions, all are deceived, all 
go up to battle, and all are devoured by the 
avenging judgments of the Almighty. 



150 THE MILLENNIUM. 

The origin of the idea of having unsaved 
nations in the millennial world seems to have 
been, that it would add such a mighty reve- 
nue of souls to the number of the redeemed. 
But if such were the case here, would not 
divine Goodness have given some indication 
of the triumph of any who should overcome 
in this final hour of temptation? But not 
a single " Hallelujah ! " is heard among the 
countless throng whom Satan goes out to de- 
ceive, in his last venture against the Almighty 
and his once suffering but now triumphant 
saints. He goes out to deceive them and they 
are deceived. Not a soul of them flies from 
the arch-seducer to join themselves to "the 
camp of the saints," or to claim the protec- 
tion of the King of Kings. It is conceivable, 
that these nations were taken under the pro- 
tection ot the great King at the commence- 
ment of the thousand years for purposes of 
salvation and redemption, and that there 
should have been such an utter failure? So 
it is less conceivable, that if any considerable 
number had resisted the deceiver, remaining 
faithful, no mention should be made of it. 
No ; every mark points to the deceived ones 
as the subjects of the second resurrection, "to 
shame and everlasting contempt." There 
cannot be a reasonable doubt of these being 



GOG AMD MAGOG-WHO ARE THETf 151 

the Gog and Magog we have been seeking: 
the ° left over," to be " an abhorring unto all 
flesh." They are permitted to appear on the 
scene at this juncture, to vindicate once and 
forever the justice and goodness of God ; 
showing that death does not sanctify men, 
nor change their hearts. Dying in sin, they 
rise in rebellion against the Lord. Having 
once yielded themselves to be led captive by 
Satan at his will, they rise all prepared to ac- 
cept the same leadership, to his and their irre- 
mediable, and eternal overthrow and ruin. 



152 THE MILLENNIUM. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE JUDGMENT. 

Among Millenarian writers we frequently 
meet with such expressions as these : " The 
first resurrection and judgment;" " the gen- 
eral resurrection and judgment of the great 
white throne/' suggesting events supposed by 
such writers to occur at the beginning and 
end of the thousand years. Such expres- 
sions are inaccurate, and misleading. So far as 
judicial proceedings are concerned, there is 
but one judgment in connection with the 
Millennium, or end of the world (Acts 
xvii:3i). 

That the judgment is spoken of Rev. xx: 
12, etc., after the descriptions of the scenes of 
the thousand years, the loosing of Satan, the 
deception of the nations, etc., we admit ; but it 
by no means follows that the events are all to 
occur subsequently, because thus related. 
The events symbolized by the seven-sealed 
book, the trumpets, the vials, the dragon, and 
seven-headed and ten horned beast, though 
not running parallel their whole course, yet 



THE JUDGMENT. 153 

are largely contemporaneous, and all have a 
common ending at the coming of Christ. So 
of the judgment; although spoken of after 
the description of the Millennium was fin- 
ished, the judicial proceedings must have 
taken place before " the first resurrection," 
else how was the questton settled who should 
have part in that resurrection? It is not 
enough to reply, " The Lord knoweth them 
that are his:" for it is also true, he knoweth 
those who are not his. And yet, whether 
we turn to Daniel, John, or almost any par- 
ticular description of the great assize, we find 
" the books" — the records — are opened ; and 
more — " the dead are judged out of those 
tilings which are written in the books." This 
then is God's method of procedure, and dem- 
onstrates the fact that the judicial proceed- 
ings of that time must have taken place prior 
to the going forth of the gathering angels. 

TIME AND ORDER OF THE JUDGMENT. 

I quote again, Dan. viirg-i i, " I beheld till 
the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient 
of days did sit, whose garment was white as 
snow, and the hair of his head like the pure 
wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and 
his wheels as burning fire. A fier}^ stream 
issued and came forth from before him : thou- 
sand thousands ministered unto him, and ten 



154 THE MILLENNIUM. 

thousand times ten thousand stood before 
him : the judgment was set, and the books 
were opened. I beheld then because of the 
voice of the great words which the horn 
spake: I beheld even till the beast was slain 
and his body destroy e 1 and given to the burn- 
ing flame/' 

Hem the time is plainly implied, that is a 
little anterior to the destruction of Rome, or 
the fourth beast. They stand before God as 
dead, and the decision of the court names 
those who shall be called in the morning, and 
who are to be " left over'* till the evening of 
that momentous day. Thus Rev. xx:i2. "And 
I saw the $ead, small and great, stand before 
God ; and the books were opened : and an- 
other book was opened, which is the book of 
life; and the dead were judged out of those 
things which were written in the books, 
according to their works-" This is clearly a 
judicial inquiry or trial ; for the dead are 
then judged by the record, that is " out of 
those things which w T ere written in the books." 

Secondly, We see by the quotation from 
Daniel that the Ancient ol days, or God the 
Father, is the Judge; and by comparing 
verses 13 and 14 with verses 9 and 10, we see 
Christ coming to this judgment-seat, to re- 
ceive the investiture of the kingdom, and au- 



THE JUDGMENT. 155 

thority to execute judgment as the Son of Man, 
in harmony with John v:26, 27, " For as the 
Father hath life in himself; so hath he given 
to the Son to have life in himself ; and hath 
given him authority to execute judgment 
also, because he is the Son of man." Thus 
the Father tries the case, and the Son of man 
executes the sentence. 

Thirdly, The presence of " the book of life" 
proves this to be a judicial proceeding. Why 
was it there ? simpl v to see whose names were 
in it, that they might be called in the morning. 
No others were written in the book but those 
who were entitled to the " better resurrec- 
tion," to the calling out from among the 
dead. 

Other considerations might be urged, but 
these are sufficient to show that the judgment 
of Rev. xx:ii,I2 must precede the Millennium. 

It being settled that the judgment, as above 
noted, is judicial, and before the thousand 
years, — indeed, before the manifestation of 
Christ to the world at all, — we inquire for the 
executive proceedings of the same. As has 
been suggested, the resurrection itself is an 
executive proceeding. Accordingly we read 
(I Thess. iv:i6), " For the Lord himself shall 
descend from heaven with a shout, with the 
voice of the archangel, and with the trump of 



156 THE MILLENNIUM. 

God : and the dead in Christ shall rise first.'' 
This is " the first resurrection ;" and the work 
continues (v. 17), "Then we which are alive 
and remain shall be caught up together with 
them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the 
air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord." 
We read in other scriptures: "Two shall be 
in the field, one shall be taken and the other 
left ;" " Two shall be in one bed, one shall be 
taken and the other left." This relates to the 
separation of the living; and synchronizes 
with meeting Christ in the air, at the Marriage 
Supper (Rev. xixn-9). Immediately succeed- 
ing this we have the executive session of 

THE GREAT WHITE THRONE: 

or in other words, of "the throne of his 
glory" (Matt. xxv:3 1-46). That this occurs, 
prior to, or at the very commencement of the 
thousand years, may be seen by. comparing 
the 31st verse above with Matt. xix:28, "In 
the regeneration, When the Son of Man shall 
sit in the throne of his glory," etc., and this is 
to be when " He comes in his glory, and all 
the holy angels with him." This is pinned 
down to the coming of Christ to execute 
judgment by Matt. xvi:27, Mark viii:38, Luke 
ix:26, and many other passages; and by no 
special pleading can it be made to apply to 
any other time. 



THE JUDGMENT. 157 

The verse we are comparing says it is "in 
the regeneration," or restitution ; which, as has 
been shown in a previous chapter, takes place 
introductory to the Millennial reign (Acts iii: 
2i). Here then, the saved nations are sepa- 
rated from the unsaved, and appointed to a 
place at the King's right hand ; in the king- 
dom "prepared for them from the foundation 
of the world ;'' while the unbelieving and un- 
saved, are driven away to the left hand, in 
confusion and shame, and appointed a place 
with kt the devil and his angels." 

Once more: II Thess. 1:7-10: "And to 
you who are troubled rest with us, when the 
Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven 
with his mighty angels, in flaming fiYe taking 
vengeance on them that know not God, and 
that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus 
Christ: who shall be punished with everlast- 
ing destruction from the presence of the 
Lord, and from the glory of his power ; when 
he shall come to be glorified in his saints." 
Here we have the manifestation, or revealing 
of Christ to the world, and the retinue that 
attend him — " his mighty angels." The same 
terrific accompaniment of "flaming fire," 
which in all the judgment scenes is described 
as "attending him down the sky." At this 
period judgment is executed "on them that 



158 THE MILLENNIUM. 

knotv not God" or on the heathen ; and Jere- 
miah's prayer is indeed answered, " Pour out 
thy fury upon the heathen that know thee 
not, and upon the families that call not on thy 
name " (Jer. x:25). Here we have also, those 
"that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus 
Christ," or the incorrigibly wicked, — just as 
in the judgment of the nations, and meeting 
the same dreadful overthrow. Finally, we 
have the chronology of this transcendantly 
awful, yet glorious, scene : " When he shall 
come to be glorified in his saints. " This is 
plainly at " the coming of our Lord Jesus 
Christ with all his saints" (I Thess. iii: 1 3). 
See also Psa. 1:5 \ Zech. xiv:5 ; Matt. xiii:43 ; 
Jude 14. This completes the work of sepa- 
ration. The righteous and the wicked com- 
mingle no more. 

Christ received his associate kings and 
priests and assigned them their station, at the 
meeting in the air, at his own Marriage Sup- 
per. The promise to the d.sciples, Matt, xix: 
28, was fulfilled by their station being assigned 
them over " the twelve tribes ;" and Israel's 
judges being " restored as at the first, and 
her counsellors as at the beginning " (Isa. i:26), 
the kingdom is organized, and Christ descends 
with the New Jerusalem and takes posses- 
sion of the New Heavens and the New Earth. 



THE JUDGMENT. 159 

The long centuries of Millennial blessedness 
begin their ample round, with "nothing to 
hurt or destroy in all the holy mountain of 
God " (Isa. xi:<9), or in the wide realm of the 
King of kings. Christ " rests in his love," 
and joys over his chosen "with singing" 
(Zeph. iii:i7). Here he reigns in Mount Zion 
and Jerusalem ; now the moon is confounded 
and the sun ashamed, before the ineffable 
brightness of the glorious triumph in the 
presence of his ancient ones (Isa. xxiv:23). 
Who shall describe the joys of that Sabbatis- 
tnos of the world? What pen shall recount 
the peace, the rest, the blessedness of the 
reign of the righteous Branch ? What heart 
imagine the rapture that shall thrill every 
soul, as our own Messiah is seen seated on 
his royal throne, with his blood-bought bride 
beside him, together drinking the cup of 
ecstatic joy which the travail of his own soul 
had purchased, spending " the honeymoon" 
of his nuptial bliss as a prelude to an eternity 
of blessedness without alloy ! 

But a single scene in the great drama of 
judgment is yet to be enacted. The thousand 
years having completed their glorious cycle, 
witnessing the beauties of the New Creation, 
the return of " the weary pilgrims of all time,'' 
coming to "Zion with songs and everlasting 



160 THE MILLENNIUM. 

joy upon their heads;" the beatific vision of 
the enthroned Lamb, as he reigns before his 
ancient ones, without a rival in all the realms 
of the eternal kingdom, then Satan is loosed 
from his prison (Rev. xxiy), and "the rest of 
the dead " live (v. 5), those who had been left 
over " to shame and everlasting contempt." 
They rise where they had fallen, " in the four 
quarters of the earth," and Satan goes out to 
deceive them and to gather them together to 
battle against " the saints," who — whether by 
divine command, or moved by their fears, we 
know not — are encamped in, or near "the 
beloved city." And these deceived ones, — 
led by the fierce archangel fallen ; inspired 
with all his matchless energy, and filled with 
his more than mortal hate, — "go upon the 
breadth of the earth, and compass the camp 
of the saints about," and the city of God (v. 9). 
They evidently think to rob those sons of 
peace of their fair inheritance, the beautiful 
city of God; and to enthrone their leader as 
"the Most High" (Isa. xiviizj.). But they 
only compass the camp: their plans are laid 
to cut off retreat, and to utterly destroy the 
ransomed of the Lord ; but not a blow is 
struck. They demonstrate that death does 
not convert men, nor hades and the grave 
sanctify them. They died unsaved, and rose 



THE JUDGMENT. 161 

with hearts unchanged, filled with malice and 
hatred against God. The manifestation is 
complete: men and angels see the justice of 
God in sending a storm of his fiery indigna- 
tion from heaven, sweeping the whole multi- 
tude of those ungodly hosts, with their leader, 
away to the lake of fire and brimstone, " where 
the beast and the false prophet are, and shall 
be tormented day and night, forever and 
ever " (v. 10). 

The last act in the scenes of judgment is 
now in the past. Redemption's story is per- 
fected. Earth is cleansed from the last ap 
pearance of sin and sinners. Not a cloud 
will cross the saints' horizon, from henceforth 
and forevermore. jesus, our great Messiah, 
reigns in his peerless majesty, unchallenged 
and without a rival; not only in Mount Zion 
and Jerusalem, but from the rising to the 
setting sun ; from sea to sea, and from the 
rivers to the ends of the earth. The will of 
God is done in earth, as tk the angels who 
kept their first estate," have ever done it in 
heaven. The glory of God is complete ; filling 
the earth " as the waters cover the great 
deep." Not a discordant note reverberates 
through earth's atmosphere ; not a minor 
strain trembles on her morning or evening 
air. Every heart is filled with melody, and 
II 



162 THE MILLENNIUM. 

every soul attuned to love. The trump of 
the Eternal Jubilee sounds out from the city 
of the Great King, echoing over mountains, 
hills and vales, 

11 Till distant mountains catch the flying joy, 
Earth rolls her rapturous Hosannas round." 

11 Hark ! ten thousand, thousand voices 

Sing the song of Jubilee ; 
Earth, through all her tribes, rejoices, 

Broke her long captivity ! 
Hail Emmanuel ! Great Deliverer, 
Hail Emmanuel ! Praise to thee ! 

" Now the theme, in pealing thunders, 

Through the universe is rung ; 
Now, in gentler tones, the wonders 

Of redeeming grace are sung. 
Wider now, and louder rising 
Swells and soars th' enraptured strain." 

While they sweep the golden lyre, 

More enchanting notes arise, 
Till each anthem, wafted higher, 

Joins the chorus of the skies. 
Earth's unnumbered tongues compiising, 
Sound the conqueror's praise again. 

Oh, the rapturous, blissful story, 

Spoken to Immanuel's praise ; 
And the strains so full of glory, 

That immortal voices raise ! 
Now a sea of bliss unbounded 
Spreads o'er earth from pole to pole. 

" While our crowns of glory casting 
At his feet, in rapture lost. 



THE JUDGMENT. 163 



We, in anthems everlasting, 

Mingle with th' angelic host :" 
Jesus reigns ! the shout is sounded, 
And its joyous echoes roll. 

' Yes, he reigns ; the great Messiah, 

In eternal glory crowned ; 
Israel's hope and earth's desire, 

Now triumphant and renowned. 
Hail, Messiah ! reign forever ! 
Hail, Immanuel ! Lord of all !" 

— Rev. Dr. T. Raffles "Jubilee Hymn" altered. 



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